Council housing allocation - 4 comments

A few days late, but here's a thought-provoking article on entitlement to council housing at UK Commentators. The conclusion is a challenging one:

What the [BBC] programme basically tells us is that Margaret Hodge's allegations on housing were correct. Recently arrived economic migrants and those granted asylum can go straight to the top of the queue - because it's needs-based rather than entitlement-based.

Do read it all, but I'm sure Labour supporters are still right to reject the false choice and unpleasant politics implied in such a position.

Some thoughts: firstly, the idea that we should shift the allocation of scarce resources from being on the basis of need to one of entitlement - or vice versa - is a ludicrous one, as if anyone can acquire an entitlement to social housing without some degree of need, and as if 'entitlement' is worth the paper it's written on when the supply of housing is so short. That much can't be in doubt. What might be in doubt is whether people accept that spending longer in a queue should give one priority over someone with greater (adjudged) need, further back.

Unlike a Post Office queue, membership of a housing queue doesn't necessarily impose pain and frustration, and where it does, this can be factored into the need calculation. Reading the quotes cited by the original post, one is never far from the belief that the concept of 'need' is devalued by systematic abuse by those claiming to be homeless deceitfully:

WALES: Essentially what we’ve got at the moment is a race to the bottom, What we do is we allocate properties on the basis of how you present yourself to a local council, so you walk in and say I’m homeless you get a greater priority then you walk in and say I’ve managed to do something for myself but I’m still looking for a council property [...]

FIELD: [...] society goes round because people work, because people play the game, because people are decent citizens and that should be rewarded rather than ‘ah look I’m actually homeless or I’ve managed to persuade people that I am deemed to be homeless therefore I should shoot to the top of the list’.

But why can't abuse be detected in advance? Any Council or official prepared to devalue the term 'need' can only do so if promoting entitlement-solutions is more important than protecting those for whom need is a meaningful term, and an urgent one. It's not as if the losers are being compensated for having to wait in line with vouchers that could be redeemed against public/private-sector rents in other localities.

Perhaps the real injustice is the concept of the queue, itself - unfair to those with great need near the back, and to those with slightly less who get leap-frogged near the front. Here's a fairer alternative - a lottery: devise a system of 'points' for each housing case, which are allocated according to 'need', its urgency, as well as length of time already spent in the queue. For each vacancy that comes up, calculate the total number of points, select a random number within, and allocate the place to whoever has the winning ticket. Repeat for each vacancy, making the tariff and the (anonymised) results available to the public, and penalising anyone found to have abused the system.

Increasing the supply of housing is not a sufficient solution, and should not be used to project 'difficult' allocation decisions several years into the future. The mechanism above would work now, and should be fairer for all while social housing is in short supply, without requiring the slightest nod towards those whose housing agenda is a cover for discriminatory community-building, or to those politicians who seek to profit one way or another from local controversies.