When four of the sector's leading organisations say it's wrong, surely any government seriously interested in social housing would listen? This time, apparently not.There are no grounds for optimism whatsoever for the social housing sector leaders who have penned a desperate plea to minister for work and pensions Malcolm Wicks, asking him to rethink his support for Frank Field's Housing Benefit Bill (see news story, page 13). Rather, all the indications are that New Labour has acquired a taste for the short, sharp shock so beloved of its predecessors.

Of course, that never worked for the Tories. And it looks like Labour hasn't learned its lesson yet. Field's proposal to withhold housing benefit from antisocial tenants allows the government to pose as decisive and "tough on crime". Evidently, the potential of toadying headlines in the Daily Mail matters more than rethinking proposals that are unworkable.

What's even more disappointing is that while this facile and simplistic bill progresses through committee stage in the House of Commons, in a parallel universe, government is conducting far saner discussions on the same issue. The DTLR document Tackling Antisocial Tenants and the Law Commission's Renting Homes: Security and Status are out for consultation for a further four weeks. Both are the end result of a thoughtful and prolonged process.

Both papers contain proposals that find far more favour with housing professionals than Field's bill. The Social Landlords Crime and Nuisance Group, for example, has praised the realism of the DTLR paper, particularly its recognition that "many landlords are very successful in tackling antisocial behaviour, while many do not use the powers currently available to them".

Social housing chiefs want to stop antisocial behaviour, and they want to work constructively with government and other law and order bodies to do it. It's vital for the tenants whose lives are made hell by nuisance neighbours that they do. But shocks aren't enough. Prevention, resettlement, mediation and acceptable behaviour contracts are crucial in changing disruptive social patterns.

Like the labour party, students and pop stars, has housing turned its back on idealism? Young firebrands are thin on the ground and it's fair to say that, for some, housing as a career no longer has the draw that it did in the days when sociology students graduated in droves, bopping along to the Beat's Stand Down Margaret. But thankfully, passion and dedication are alive and well. It's just that those striving to provide decent homes are more likely to be found slaving over a spreadsheet than standing on a soap box.

Source

Housing Today