Written evidence submitted by Hornsey Housing Trust [HOP 090]

 

Introduction

 

  1. Hornsey Housing Trust (HHT) is a not-for-profit Housing Association operating solely in the London Borough of Haringey. HHT was formed in 1933 by Margaret Hill, CBE, whose primary objective was to aid ‘old aged pensioners’.
  2. The Trust currently owns 369, and manages a further 16, properties. In 2013 we celebrated our 80th Birthday. We aim to meet the current and future needs of older and vulnerable people in Haringey by providing quality homes, excellent value for money services and placing tenants at the centre of everything we do.
  3. The key aims of the association from now to 2021 are to grow, to achieve better economies of scale, and to improve service levels so that we compare well with the best in our sector.
  4. HHT welcomes the Committee’s decision to look into this area and we hope that the thoughts from a smaller provider, combined with submissions you will no doubt receive from larger Housing Associations (HAs), will help to give a broad view of the sector as a whole. We have sought to provide a few points for each of your areas of specific interest.

 

The adequacy of provision of homes for older people and the challenges people face in accessing housing which meets their needs.

 

  1. Like many small HAs, we have a range of converted flats in Victorian street properties in addition to low-care sheltered housing schemes, which were built around 30 years ago. The street properties have specific issues which need to be addressed, including tenant isolation, poor accessibility and problems with high heating costs and poor sound insulation. These homes are generally too small to accommodate live-in carers, even on a temporary basis. For this reason we have resolved to replace the approximately 10% of our stock which consists of bedsit units. The street properties, however, could be converted back into family houses with gardens and have quite a high commercial value.
  2. HHT has not developed any new homes since the demise of the Housing Corporation over 20 years ago. We did take advantage of the grants and low interest loans then to build our sheltered schemes on land provided by the council, who in turn received 100% nomination rights. We continue to fill our vacancies by nominations from Haringey Council's list but there are no opportunities for us to acquire sites from them, especially now as the Council plans to put its land into the Haringey Development Vehicle, a partnership where a developer brings their resources to achieve joint development objectives.
  3. Whilst small HA’s can be innovative in their approach, and focus on a specialism or locality, the challenge they face is creating the additional organizational capacity to provide new homes. There can be a lack of opportunity in contributing to local developments to increase the number of social homes for older tenants.
  4. We are about to build 21 new units on our own land from accumulated surpluses gained over many years. However, few small HAs have access to the support needed for development. The presence of hundreds of small HAs each with surpluses of around £3m means that resources that could be providing new homes lie idle.
  5. Solutions to this include forming partnerships and collaborations with other HA’s – achieving shared costs, delivering value for money and mitigating risk. HHT is a member of the g320 network of smaller HA’s as well as the National Housing Federation and these networks provide opportunities for partnership and sharing of best practice and communications channels. However, the boards of smaller HAs must constantly question their abilities to provide value for money and whether through partnership or merger with another provider better use of their resources could be made.
  6. There remains a challenge for HHT to provide extra support to residents in general needs properties. The local authority Supporting People Grant has been reduced substantially over recent years, and now only funds services to tenants in sheltered accommodation. Even here, the allowance has fallen from £400 to £70 per month. However the support needs and vulnerabilities of these tenants have not diminished.
  7. Older people can also have problems with isolation. Tenants in street properties need to feel connected with our wider community, and to tackle this we seek to provide information around community activity as well as having events such as summer barbecues, summer trips and Christmas parties. These events are held at specific schemes or all tenants.
  8. Within sheltered schemes, the communal resources within the sheltered schemes i.e. lounges, kitchens, hobby rooms and gardens, will be used as a ‘hub’ to provide a focal point and facilities to foster greater local community activities and bring tenants and their neighbours together to improve the quality of their lives.

 

The adequacy of current planning policy and government initiatives in England in meeting the housing needs of older people.

 

  1. There are specific challenges and constraints of a small specialist housing association accessing small building sites or contributing to larger development schemes. On the positive side, small and specialist HA’s such as HHT provide range and diversity of supply in both geography and objectives. They can use their local specialist knowledge to have focused services based on in-depth knowledge of their tenants’ needs and vulnerabilities.
  2. Smaller HAs may have a strong network of relevant contacts in the local community and both board and staff members are much closer to the ground in knowing about what best works for their tenants in their locality. We are in a good position to pilot initiatives on a small scale, as per our involvement with the Dementia Action Alliance (see below). On the negative side the small HA can find it harder to acquire the full breadth of skills and experience necessary for development, both at executive and board level.
  3. In our particular part of the sector, planning guidelines are not always sensitive to building specialist older persons’ homes. In the design of our new 21 units we embraced the Housing our Ageing Population: Positive Ideas (HAPPI) principles and included a second small bedroom for the use of a carer when needed and for hobbies. However, as soon as the Planning Officer noted the second bedroom the unit became a 2 bedroom 3 person unit and we were required to provide a bicycle space. Few of our elderly and vulnerable tenants have a need for a bicycle, however, so this type of situation causes unnecessary cost and use of space which could best be utilised in other ways. We therefore welcome the commitment in the Government’s Housing White paper to introduce: ‘a new statutory duty through the Neighbourhood Planning Bill on the Secretary of State to produce guidance for local planning authorities on how their local development documents should meet the housing needs of older and disabled people’. [1]
  4. There needs to be well-targeted use of the Community Infrastructure Levy in the Neighbourhood Forums to create lifetime communities – details such as street furniture that is sensitive and appropriate for the needs of vulnerable residents, ease of use for mobility scooters, aids for the visually impaired using pavements and roads.

 

Whether more housing designed specially for older people could help address England’s wider housing needs

 

  1. An increase in well-designed older people’s accommodation could result in freeing-up some under-occupied family units, and have a knock on impact on the wider housing crisis. All too often the only ‘down-sizing’ option is a small one bedroom flat, or even a bed-sitting room, in a sheltered housing scheme. Many tenants are fortunately living out active retirements and require accommodation which responds to this. Haringey has many families living in temporary Bed and Breakfast accommodation. It has been independently audited that savings of £18,000/annum could be made by moving them into a family home.
  2. It should be noted that older people’s accommodation is not just about the design, there are also factors such as location, cost and whether or not the accommodation is integrated into the local community.

 

The extent to which specialist housing providers in England could improve people’s health and wellbeing, and deliver savings in public expenditure

 

  1. In our experience, having a specialist focus on older people’s needs means we can recruit staff and design our accommodation on that basis, plus accumulating knowledge and experience in terms of which strategies are most successful in providing suitable accommodation to this demographic.
  2. New homes that we build will be to the Hornsey Housing Trust’s own standard, based on the knowledge we have of the future needs of our tenants. They are: dementia-friendly in design, safe, economical to heat and adaptable for future needs.
  3. We also regularly carry out an annual investment programme to ensure homes are safe and compliant including improvements such as:
  1. We also use our experience and specialisation to develop services to benefit people’s wider lives. We have developed a successful collaboration with the Alzheimer’s Society, with whom we work to provide a weekly dementia-friendly café and support and advice workers for our residents, their families and carers.
  2. HHT also chairs the Haringey Dementia Action Alliance (DAA), which has nearly 20 members including arts organisations, retailers, public bodies, charities and others. The Alliance seeks to improve the quality of life / experience of people living with dementia through dementia-friendly services and social activities.
  3. HHT also collaborates with others to support activities such as weekly lunch clubs, gardening clubs, stroke clubs, hairdressers and chiropodists. We also supply televisions and facilities for local scheme-based film clubs. Other social activities provided include: Christmas party / scheme outings / summer visits and BBQs. We are also introducing coffee and computer workshops in schemes, and the communal areas in our schemes are Wi-Fi enabled. We also carry out targeted welfare and wellbeing calls to tenants, especially at key times like the Christmas period when people can feel particularly isolated.

 

The availability of finance to help older people “right size” in retirement, and the impact of the cap on Housing benefit from April 2017 on the development of specialist housing

 

  1. It has been well reported that a cap on Housing Benefit may affect the viability of new high-care sheltered housing schemes.
  2. New HHT tenants will be on affordable rents which are below Local Housing Allowance levels. In addition HHT has recruited a Universal Credit officer. They are assisting older persons with financial matters such as how to use the new Universal Credit, as well as such as benefits out of payment, council tax benefits, Personal Independence Payments (PIPs) and debt management.

 

Whether a national strategy for the support of housing provision specifically for older people is needed

 

  1. We welcome the Government’s intention: ‘to strengthen national policy so that local planning authorities are expected to have clear policies for addressing the housing requirements of groups with particular needs, such as older and disabled people’[2]. A national strategy would certainly be of benefit if it took advantage of best practice and successful pilot schemes to roll out helpful practical measures across the sector.
  2. Areas covered by a national strategy could include:

 

March 2017

 

 

[1] Fixing our broken housing market: White Paper. Dept for Communities & Local Government, Feb 2017, p63, para 4.42

[2] Fixing our broken housing market: White Paper. Dept for Communities & Local Government, Feb 2017, p75, para A24