SHELTER is a great organisation.
It does invaluable work in the fight against homelessness and the shortage of affordable housing; likewise the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA) Graeme Brown refers to in his letter exhorting the Scottish Government to deal with the funding crisis in social housing (Letters, April 6).
History suggests that he is mistaken to hope that this, or any other government, will do so. It isn't going to happen. A cursory glance at the government funding chart of money allocated to social housing since 1945 will demonstrate this. It is too optimistic to believe that such an entrenched historical funding trend will be reversed in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the 1920s.
Housing has never been a serious priority for governments of any hue in the post-war period. Neither Tory, Labour, Coalition, nor Nationalist governments have paid much notice to the desperate pleadings for funding from bodies such as Shelter and the SFHA. These, and other interested stakeholders who lobby for a reversal of this historic decline of housing investment, are almost certain to be ignored once again.
Given this gloomy picture, the Scottish social housing sector might consider looking for alternative ways to attract the level of funding required to meet the crisis – one compounded by its attendant negative impact on health, criminality, anti-social behaviour, family and individual breakdown, unemployment and educational opportunity.
In the unlikely chance that the Government were to increase funding for affordable housing it would do so by increasing borrowing. The money would be sourced from the usual places: banks, investment bodies, pension trusts; in other words the money market. And of course it would have to be repaid, and that could only come from the revenue stream available to housing associations and other social landlords, that is, rents.
Size matters when borrowing. Why don't the SFHA and any other interested stakeholders engage in the historic response of ordinary people when faced with a funding and power deficit. Why not combine and co-operate?
There are several hundred well-run and highly effective social businesses (housing associations) throughout the length and breadth of Scotland. Why not meet under the auspices of the SFHA with a view to contributing a manageable amount into a collective funding pot? Then, instead of pleading with deaf middle-men (politicians) they could go directly to the market place from a position of co-operative financial strength.
They know the value of their assets, and they know the amount of revenue needed (rents) to pay back what they borrow. The good people who control and manage housing associations are wiser, more experienced, more knowledgeable, and better placed than any politician to engage directly and effectively with the market to borrow and repay the funds required to address the housing crisis in Scotland.
It is a duty of government to ensure the availability of decent housing for all of its citizens. It isn't going to happen any time soon.
It is time for the social housing sector to go direct. It is time for the creation of a (not for profit) Scottish Housing Investment Funding Trust? Time for a shift by everyone in the sector away from dependence on politics and pleading and towards self-sufficiency and self-determination.
Either the sector determines its own abundant future or a future of scarcity will be determined for it. .
Barry Docherty,
9 Park Circus,
Glasgow.
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