Introduction

L&S is a socialist organisation. As such we advocate workers control. That is every bit at the heart of our approach to community politics as it is in the workplace. One of the fundamental battlegrounds for community organisation is over housing provision. We therefore cannot abrogate to comment on the procurement, supply and control of this.

Housing Supply

In a time of capitalist crisis the formula the government has used for the past period of New Labour governance, which echoes the doctrines of the Tories before them, who began the process that New Labour have brought to a head, has reduced the supply of social housing to record lows.

In a time of mass housing repossessions and unemployment this has severe repercussions on the quality of life of working class people, pushing us more and more into the hands of Rachmanite landlords in the private sector.

The vision for 'social housing' (a term created by a Tory MP to soft-sell the privatisation and stock transfer of public housing to social enterprises and quangos known as Housing Associations), appears to have been to reduce it to vestigial levels to make it a choice of last resort.

With the collapse of cheap credit since October 2008, the era of the 'homeowning democracy' is now firmly over. We must understand, despite complicated financial arrangements, the vast majority of British people are tenants. They are either de facto tenants of banks thru mortgage, tenants of the government (be that in council housing, or quangos known as housing associations, or special housing), or tenants of private landlords (including those landlords applicable for 'registered' status).

The shift over the past 30 years has been to make most people tenants of banks (mortgage holders). As the banking sector is now underwritten by the government, this blurs these lines even further.

High quality council housing is not available in this country to many who need it, forcing those who have no other option into the hands of banks or Rachmanite landlords. As credit dries up and financial risk is reassessed by the UK's declining financial sector, mortgage tenancy is going to become increasingly impossible to obtain, forcing more people into the hands of private landlords.

This is a partial return to the conditions which obtained before the struggles of generations of working people prevailed in the mass home building that took place from the Attlee government onwards.

Organisation

When tenants are organised under one landlord it is easier to apply pressure, then when there are multiple landlords and multiple conditions prevailing for tenants.

When that one landlord is a local authority, the ruling class is forced to provide at least some level of accountability. Similar to collective bargaining, having conditions which prevail for all tenants in a given neighbourhood also mean that solidarity is easier to build.

Organisation in the private sector (due to the cross-over of certain forms of commercial interests) often encroaches on the territory of organised criminal gangs, drug dealers, and gangsters in various hues. While the state can be every bit as brutal when it chooses to be, the price for the state in removing the veneer of respectability in repressing tenant organisation is usually far greater than in the private sector, so open repression is less likely as an initial response to organisation. This can allow organisation to develop more readily before it comes under attack.

But it also means that organisation faces particular pressures. The state responds to organisation in council and public sector tenures thru a strategy of inclusion.

Example of this strategy in practice: In Scotland since 2004, when the independent tenants movement, came under severe attack, the government established regional networks cohered by civil servants, and comprised exclusively of registered tenants organisations (RTOS: a new status that was brought in during the 2001 Housing Act; tenants associations register with their landlord and the government, and must operate within the constraints of a government approved constitution. They are funded to the tune of £500 a year, and this funding can be selectively audited by government, and registered status can be revoked; landlords are under statutory obligation to 'consult with' RTOs.). Participation is refused for unregistered groups. There are nine regional networks of RTOs across Scotland, brought together for consultative purposes, and to rubberstamp decisions at the beck and call of civil servants (and until recently, a government department known as Communities Scotland, part of whose brief appears to have included the task 'to destroy the tenants movement'). The government has until recently refused to deal with any other organisation at a national level, but at the same time the regional networks are prevented from taking up any real campaigning activity, because 'local issues' such as landlord wide action are kept off the agenda as they do not concern the entire region. At the same time the government has withdrawn support and dialogue from local authority-wide federal organisations that are not in its pocket.

This kind of thing is a challenge that is not faced by private sector tenants. Partnership working enforced like this has all but destroyed a tenants movement in Scotland, which 3 three years previously had forced the government to enact ambitious and progressive new homeless legislation granting everyone in Scotland the right to a public sector tenancy.

1. L&S believes in the power of independent tenant organisation. L&S will build and support independent tenants organisation, and will encourage that the tenants movement adopt an uncompromising stance of independence in defence of our class interests.

Goals of L&S Housing Policy

2. The ultimate objective of L&S housing policy is for popular control of our housing.

Popular control is less a measure of the type of housing, or who is the landlord, than it is what is the health, confidence and power of a movement. A powerful movement will arrogate power.

Popular control is not partnership working. It is not management of housing subcontracted out to tenants. It is when the power of organised workers is sufficient that landlords answer to our organisations, as our organisation develops its capacity to expropriate our housing back from the landlords in the future.

The life of such a movement however is very much based in these questions however (the type of housing etc). Every tenant everywhere wants more or less the same thing. They want security of tenure. They want high quality housing, that is windproof, airtight and waterproof, dry, and sizeable enough to meet their needs. They want that to be affordable. They want their repairs and maintenance carried out promptly and efficiently. They want their landlord to otherwise butt out of their lives, and for tenants locally to be able to secure such improvements as are necessary quickly, with the minimum of fuss.

Despite three decades of propaganda aimed at encouraging mortgages to be taken out, and artificially inflating a shared sense of 'home ownership' amongst the majority paying mortgages, social housing is still valued for precisely the reason that when it is good these conditions have been met (at least as long as people have been able to force them to be met), even if the past decades have been ones of decline, and mass demolitions. Many people in cities faced with overcrowding and poverty (such as London) cannot get a council house try as they might. One in twelve people is on a waiting list for a home. If anything this figure understates the demand.

Despite the propaganda, and despite the decades of underinvestment most people want social housing to be seen as a right, and a choice, not an option of last resort.

3. L&S believes that in the here and now we must fight for more high quality council houses to be built to address the housing shortfall and mammoth waiting lists for a decent home.

4. L&S also believes that we must remove the subsidies to the banks and the private sector. State run housing is cheaper, and provides opportunities for organisation that in the private sector would be harder to achieve.

5. We believe the ultimate aim of our housing policy should be to socialise all housing. We should be tactically flexible when we approach this question. It is possible to force private sector landlords to make concessions, and ultimately to force them into providing housing on a par with the conditions met in social housing. But we must bear in mind that secure tenancies, regular upkeep and space for families were things that previous generations won from the state. They were not given to us, and as organisation has collapsed these things have started to be taken away from us.

Social housing can be provided for in a number of ways, from housing co-ops, to council housing, to housing associations. There are many variations on the theme. The key point is that it should a goal of L&S to build a movement to transform any tenancy into the best conditions possible for the tenant, as we work to build a movement capable of eventually seizing control.

In the here and now however, with calls from Unite, Shelter Scotland, and the Scottish Tenants Organisation to build more council houses, and the first council house programme in decades underway (albeit the drip in the ocean it actually is in response to the massive need), there is a very real opportunity to force the state to provide more council housing.

6. Now more than ever then it is an urgent task to build a movement capable of asserting the wishes of communities. The scale of the transformation of society possible by such methods in the mid term future is far greater than the possibilty of using other methods to construct more social housing (housing co-ops for example will always remain a fringe phenomenon by comparison, due to the huge quantities of capital required to engage in major building works. Council house building is the most efficient way to plug the need in housing.

7. As such L&S requires all members active in housing struggles to seek the involvement of local tenants federations, and requires members to participate in local chapters of Defend Council Housing, or Scotland's for Council Housing, and to pursue the building of new high quality homes. The shortfall in the availability of social housing must be met by building more council housing. This is the only method that will actually provide housing in sufficient quantity to meet the needs of our class in the here and now. Shelter Scotland have called for 100,000 homes to be built in Scotland. Unite have called for new homes to be built at a UK level.

8. L&S endorses the DCH call.

An increase in the supply of social rented homes of some 50,000 a year will be necessary to reduce significantly the backlog in demand. Despite recent increases in spending, current rates of building are below this level; all providers of social rented homes need sufficient encouragement, resources and flexibility to increase supply. The Government must be prepared, if necessary, to raise investment in new supply still further.

9. L&S endorses the call from Unite.

• A massive programme of new build, high quality, environmentally sustainable social housing, including council homes which would create jobs, meet housing need, and redress the inequality of social housing in rural areas.
• A comprehensive construction apprenticeship scheme for the 16 to 24-year-olds whose job prospects have diminished during the recession.
• Investment in a ‘retro-fit’ programme for existing homes to improve energy efficiency. It is estimated that such action could generate a further 25,000 jobs and would greatly contribute to the Government’s environmental targets.
• The Government to use its large stake in the banking sector to do more to prevent repossessions and strengthen the regulatory framework.
• Greater support for housing associations to ensure they receive sufficient funding to provide housing and support for tenants; and that staff numbers and employment conditions are maintained and enhanced.

10. L&S further notes.

“the UK’s 600,000 empty homes should be brought back into use by reducing VAT on repair and maintenance and giving local authorities real power rather than ineffective Empty Dwelling Management Orders”.87 Similarly, the Campaign to Protect Rural England notes “in the North West region alone, there are around 130,000 homes lying empty—more than five times the number of new homes planned for the region (23,000 per year)”.

[...]

The Government is willing to purchase unsold homes from developers through the National Clearing House. We believe it should also be willing to buy unsold family homes, for which there is a particular need in the social rented sector, on the open market. We recommend that it direct some of the money from the National Affordable Housing Programme to the purchase of suitable properties which have not sold on the open market for a period of a year or more. Priority should be given to the purchase of homes where the transaction would enable elderly home-owners to gain access to much needed sheltered accommodation. The refurbishment of these existing homes for social rent will help utilise skills and capacity in the construction industry which might otherwise be lost. [DCH report]

11. L&S supports such calls. L&S will support 4th Option policies to bring council housing to a level playing field wih the private sector, removing hidden subsidies for the private sector, and removing the subsidy for demolition.

Control not management

The aim of L&S housing policy is to see popular control of housing, and improvements in our homes in the here and now. It it not to provide subcontracted management of homes for landlords from tenants.

12. L&S supports calls for community buy-outs, tenant management co-ops, letting initiatives, establishment of community land trusts, and moves to establish condominiums and other shared services and control initiatives established at the demand of tenant and mortgage holders. We aim to spread this methodology, as we advance the power of our class. But we also note that this is not the solution for those vast majority of communities at present where little or no organisation of our class is present. The viability of such initiatives is determined exclusively by the vitality and strength of popular organisation; this is the only safeguard against such moves becoming recuperated into becoming the agents of landlords.