Empty MOD Homes - Still a Scandal

In the early 1990s empty homes owned by the military became a national scandal. Thousands of homes for service people were left empty causing public outrage at a time of record homelessness. To be fair to the military changing defence needs caused by the end of the cold war had caused many properties to become surplus. But the MOD proved ineffective in dealing with them. In one of the Empty Homes Agency’s first campaigns we said that surplus military homes should be used to house those in housing need. The government responded, and in 1996 they took a dramatic step that was supposed to end the problem once for all. They sold nearly 60,000 homes (the majority of the military’s housing stock) to a private company Annington Homes. In one fell swoop Annington homes became, and remains today the largest private landowner in the country. The government’s idea was that Annington would manage refurbish and gradually dispose of the homes onto the private market. With market forces introduced into the stock of housing, the thinking was vacancy rates would drop and the military’s housing stock would better match their housing needs.

Unfortunately the story did not end there. Figures uncovered by the Liberal Democrats today reveal that the military’s housing vacancy rate is as bad as ever. With an estimated 9000 empty homes the military’s vacancy rate is approximately 20%. Seven times the national average and around ten times the rate of an average housing association. The customary response from the MOD to accusations of high vacancy levels is that they are a special case. And indeed they are. The military needs a flexible housing stock to accommodate changing operational needs. Most people would agree that service people returning from a tour of duty abroad need a decent home to return to, and that means keeping a greater vacancy rate than other housing providers.

But what is so significant about these figures is that they don't reppresent pristine properties waiting to welcome new residents. A BBC’s investigation for the Today programme last year knocked the MOD’s argument right off its pedestal. Visiting a selection of empty military homes the BBC discovered that most were in no fit state to house anybody. Left totally unmanaged and, amazingly – unsecured, the homes fell into semi-dereliction. The Military's argument that they are mothballed awaiting a returning battalion from Iraq is rendered absurd and faintly insulting to service men and women. The one empty MOD property I saw last year that was in good condition (with windows open and heating on- presumably to stop condensation rather than heat the atmosphere and attract intruders) ended up a squat .

So what went wrong, and how come the Military still own so much residential property? It turns out that many of these homes are the very same ones that were sold to Annington homes in 1996. Discovering later that they didn’t have enough housing, the MOD leased back many of the homes it sold. Now, saddled with high rents and dilapidation clauses, leaving them empty now is even more wasteful to the MOD than it was in the early 1990s. Can anything be done? I think it can. There are housing providers that are perfectly suited to these circumstances. Shortlife housing providers are very good at making use of the most unpromising buildings. They can help with repairs and renovation and provide what these homes need most – occupants. If military needs change and the MOD need them back, shortlife housing agreements allow for them to be rapidly returned to the owner. The MOD gets residents and a management service to stop the properties from deteriorating, Neighbours loose an eyesore and source of anti social behaviour. Lots of people get homes to live in. We put this to Defence Estates last year and on the Today programme last February and they said that they would do it. So what’s happened in the last year? Nothing. They haven’t put any properties out to shortlife and their vacancy rate has gone up. Shame on them.

Posh Squats

I have been resisting the temptation to post anything about so-called posh squats up until now. They appear to be getting plenty of publicity without my help. Today, however, I have spoken to six journalists about them, including, if she will forgive me for bracketing her in such company, Vanessa Feltz. There is no doubt that this has become a big story.

It started in Brighton, then Upper Grovesnor Street, then Green Park and now Park Lane. Some of the poshest addresses in the UK have become squatted by what appears to be a new breed of lifestyle squatters. In total their number is tiny but the fact that they have infiltrated such prestigious neighbourhoods gives them access to the media in a quite phenomenal way. What amazes me is the uncritical way they have been reported. Both the Telegraph and the Mail managed to print articles on squatting without uttering the words scrounger, freeloader or sponger - unthinkable just a few weeks ago. The recession moves in mysterious ways!

Turning the Place Over

There was one place where culture and empty properties did meet in Liverpool. Artist Richard Wilson created what many called the most daring piece of public art in Britain – Turning the Place Over. It was installed in an empty building in a side street in Liverpool’s city centre. I remember stumbling upon it by accident last year without ever having heard about it before. For sheer surprise value I think it was the best way to see it. Sadly the motor has now been turned off, but it lives on in You Tube.

The Liverpool Legacy

Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture ended last week, and there has been much discussion as to what sort of legacy it will leave. It has certainly made a change to have a positive spotlight on what for me is one of this country’s greatest cities.

With the enormous new “Liverpool One” shopping centre taking shape, a revitalised Pier Head and a new cruise liner dock their can be little doubt that the city centre is looking forward with confidence.

A mile or two away however and regeneration of Liverpool’s housing stock looks less rosy. Anfield contains a greater volume of empty homes than anywhere else in the UK. Liverpool’s housing regeneration was based on trying to attract the housing boom into areas of the city with depressed housing markets. Large volumes of homes were bought up and left vacant in the hope that they would appeal as large development sites to big housing developers. Unfortunately it hasn’t worked, and with the housing boom over there is nothing to attract.

Like many other towns and cities Liverpool has it’s fair share of vacant new flats too, but nowhere has the combination of overoptimistic housing developers, and regenerators left so much damage. The legacy of culture for this city is surely bright, but the housing legacy is in need of urgent attention. This superbly edited video speaks a thousand words.

Empty home owners prolonging the recession

I spent part of Christmas in my hometown of Ipswich. Being on holiday I was not on empty homes alert, but I could hardly miss this. When these waterfront homes were first planned a decade ago they were supposed to help turn the town from a working port into an executive service based economic hub. It hasn’t worked. The port has disappeared downstream, but the executives never really materialised. Like almost everywhere else in the UK the population of Ipswich is filled with ordinary people who need homes at ordinary prices. Instead what they’ve got is homes built for a hypothetical population at hypothetical prices. The reason they stay empty is because the owners have not yet accepted that the prices need to drop drastically. Only when they do, and only when people start buying them will we be able to say that housing market has bottomed out.

In the meantime the one thing that could knock some sense into this ludicrous situation is the council using its enforcement powers to force the owners to get then occupied. Councillor Harsant’s comments don’t lead me to think this is imminent. But there’s nothing to stop the council doing this and forcing the owners to accept the true market rental value. It may sound draconian, but to do otherwise is simply storing up a bigger financial hit for the owner later, and putting the prospect of housing market recovery ever further away.

A Happy Activist New Year

2008 was the year the housing industry’s chickens finally came home to roost; the year when people stopped buying shoddy homes thrown up by speculators, and when they said no to ever-rising prices.

But look what we are left with. A housing market so dysfunctional that despite record levels of housing need, we have the retched sight of nearly a million empty homes. And policy so out of touch;that perfectly good homes are being destroyed to make way for regeneration projects that will never happen. It’s time to think again about who controls our housing.

At heart I’m an optimist. What gives me faith is that the skills of finding and building homes lie deep in the DNA of our species. Just a few generations ago we all created our own homes. Much of the world still does. But here those skills are untapped as housing has been commoditised by housebuilders, speculators and governments. Between them they have let us down. Surely the lesson of this year is that we should never again let so few people make decisions about our housing at our expense again.

Now, with little prospect of profit, many speculators are turning their back on housing altogether. This leaves a gap, and I believe a unique opportunity for you to influence future decisions about housing in your area. What better place to start than vacant property that should be homes.

My hope is that in 2009 we all become housing activists. If we do, I think there is every chance that what emerges from the wreckage will be a housing market that serves people over profits and leaves a legacy we can have pride in for a generation.

Squatting Your Own House

ITV news last night reported the first UK case of a phenomenon that is taking hold in the USA; squatting your own house. Or perhaps more accurately squatting your ex-house.

The couple from Kent are one of almost 30,000 households who have had their house repossessed this year. This is a dramatic rise from last year when 12,000 were repossessed all year. What the Kent couple found was that once their house was in the hand of their bank nothing more happened. Their ex-house joined the ranks of Britain’s 939,000 empty homes. After a few weeks of looking at it sitting there doing nothing, they thought “what the hell” and broke back in and took up residence. They’ve even put the Christmas decorations up. The bank doesn’t seem to have noticed. Or at least hadn’t until it was broadcast to the nation last night.

The lenders have discovered that repossessing people’s homes is only the start of their problems. Apart from the obvious human misery for the households, and public relations disaster for them, they have found that in a falling housing market they can’t find anybody to buy the repossessed houses. In fact of those 30,000 repossessed homes, the lenders have admitted that at least 6,000 are unsaleable. Given the speed of the current housing market you can be pretty sure that the vast majority of those 30,000 are still empty.

In this context the newly nationalised RBS announcement yesterday that repossessions would not start for six months after households fell into arrears, looks less like altruism and more like cold reality. Bankrupt banks turfing bankrupt households out of their homes into the street in order to leave them empty doesn’t feel like a policy that helps anybody.

Thank You Darling

Amongst all the talk of falling house prices and a collapsing economy another threat to our housing is emerging, - rising vacancy. If trends continue numbers could well pass the million mark next year. Does it matter? You bet it does, in a country bursting at the seams with housing need, the prospect of homes for two million people sitting wasted is nothing less than a scandal. Or if you prefer, think of it this way; statistically speaking you now have a one in twelve chance of living next door to an empty home

So what help did the chancellor offer in yesterday's pre budget report? I'm afraid to say – virtually nothing. There was money for housing associations to build more homes and for them to buy up new flats, but this doesn’t address the problem. Instead this should be the perfect time for housing associations to be buying and renovating run down empty homes. Not only would this help provide the social homes we need, but it would boost employment for builders working on renovation and help regenerate the areas where ordinary people live creating healthy mixed communities.

It may be cheaper to buy up new flats from bankrupt builders, but if the government is spending money it is surely worthwhile investing it where we will reap long-term social benefits.

Bob Lawrence

I have just received the very sad news that Bob Lawrence died earlier today. For those of you didn't know him Bob was the first Chief Executive, and indeed the first employee of the Empty Homes Agency. He led us for seven years before going on to become the director of housing in Montserrat following the volcano disaster. In recent years he has been a homelessness advisor at CLG. He was a passionate larger than life character and without him I very much doubt there would have been an Empty Homes Agency. We will miss him greatly.

ReportEmptyHomes.com

It’s not officially launched until next week, but ReportEmptyHomes.com is being used successfully already so what the hell. The simple idea behind this new website is that councils respond their citizens. The cynical may question this, but I think it works and I hope this new website proves it.

Enter a postcode or road and the website takes you to a mini map, click on where the empty property is, fill in a few brief details and send. That’s it. The empty property is reported automatically to the council and it will keep bothering them until they do something about it. Councils have the powers to tackle empty homes and I believe that with this new tool they can direct them to where it is needed most.

Cynics also suggested that councils would ignore the website. But early evidence says not. So far today there are 17 new properties reported on the site and 21 responses from councils. As Victor Keagan pointed out in yesterday’s Guardian if councils embrace websites like this it will probably help everyone. So far at least, it looks as if they are.