THE number of people on Coventry’s housing waiting list has scandalously risen by 6,000 in the last 12 months. The figure was given in one of a series of answers I obtained at last week's full Council meeting on housing, school places and low pay in the Council.
See this article in today's Coventry Telegraph: http://t.co/EIoeNCm1
As the Coventry Telegraph article explains, public consultation starts today on the Council’s new “core strategy” which plans to encourage the building of 14,000 new homes over the next 15 years. The Telegraph says that means 850 new homes a year. But in the current recession I don't think private builders are building that number, and anyway under current rules that would mean just a couple of hundred a year would be "affordable".
What hope does that give the 22,000 now on the housing waiting list?
Clearly, what is needed is not just a target for homes but the strategy and the finance to achieve it. That means the Council, Whitefriars and other RSL's, should have funds from the government to actually build the homes that would be needed to give everyone the chance of somewhere decent to live. That means a public sector house building plan, and in my view would be a better use of public money than paying off the bankers' gambling debts.
What do you think? Tell the Council at: http://bit.ly/mPzMlg
And let me know, too, so I can raise it in the Council in the weeks ahead.
Please share. Thanks, Dave
Instead of the government helping this mother, they have kicked her while she is down by reducing her housing benefits. Now she faces the choice of going hungry or going into debt as she struggles to pay her bills.
The mother of three has been looking for work, hoping to lift herself out of this plight. At the same time she is told to look further than Coventry for a job, not so easy when you do not have the money or the means to travel so freely.
We need to see the programme of affordable social housing speed up, otherwise more vunerable people will be exploited by landlords.