Restricting access to social homes will not solve Wales’ housing crisis

Our homes are the foundation of everything, from our health and wellbeing to education, jobs and community life. Social homes are there to provide this foundation to everyone who otherwise would not be able to afford to meet the most fundamental of needs: shelter. 

Stable and secure housing means children can focus at school. It means people take part in their community because they have the opportunity to get to know their neighbours. It means people can develop further skills or stay in work close to home. 

Social homes are for the long-term, and this really matters: to people and to places. When we get housing right, the benefits are felt everywhere and by everyone. Secure, long-term tenancies mean people can put down roots and build their lives. 

But at the moment, we simply do not have enough social homes in Wales for the people who need them. The housing emergency is well recognised, in Wales and across the UK: too many people are still living in homes that are unaffordable, unsuitable or unsafe, and too many do not have a place to call home. 

The causes of this, whilst complex and involving decisions by successive governments over decades, boils down to one fundamental truth: we do not have enough social homes. 

There is political consensus that we need to build more genuinely affordable homes in the places people need them. However, in recent weeks we have heard arguments that access to social homes should be restricted and furthermore some people currently living in them should be evicted on the basis of factors such as their place of birth, relationship and employment status. 

This would fundamentally contradict the purpose of social housing and be diametrically opposed to the values of housing associations in Wales: to provide long-term homes to those who need them, and from which people can build their lives. 

Given the scale of the housing emergency and the number of people stuck in inappropriate, unaffordable or unsafe living conditions, it is important we look at all opportunities to act. 

However, proposals to evict people who live here legally, who are our children’s classmates, our colleagues, our neighbours and friends, are unacceptable. It causes fear, stokes further division and risks pulling communities apart. 

It would also cause tremendous levels of hardship and increase homelessness, exacerbating the very problems we know we need to solve. It would mean councils across Wales spending even more on expensive and inappropriate temporary accommodation.  It would not lay a single brick towards building the homes we need. 

Social homes are allocated on the basis of need. The law requires priority to be given to people experiencing the greatest housing need. Due to the current shortage of social homes, the people being allocated homes are often those with the most acute housing needs, including people who are homeless, disabled or have young children. To be able to reach everyone who needs a social home, we urgently need to build more. 

In the past decade, the Senedd has passed laws that enshrine principles of preventing homelessness and providing secure long-term homes to those who need them. Wales is now building new social homes at the highest rate since 2008.  

We are making progress, but there is much more to do.  The route out of the housing emergency is not to pit different groups of people against each other and divide communities, it is to build the social homes we urgently need in every part of Wales.