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Tue 19 Aug 2008, 21:57
There is some understandable confusion about the housing allocation law and the actual procedures. I will try to make it a bit clearer.
Firstly, there IS a need for a local connection to be established for affordable houses but not social housing (though, in my experience, people with local connections do usually get favoured).
Secondly, there is NO 'queue' or 'waitng list' in the way one would normally understand it. That is one can't go 'to the head of the queue' or 'jump the waiting list'. This is because, due to law passed in the sixties (I think), houses are awarded on who has the highest number of points, and NOT on how long one has been on the list. Points are given for certain categories of need, i.e. medical problems, insecurity or overcrowding etc.
When I became a district councillor I was appalled to discover that how long one had been waiting had almost no relevance; (the only time it does is when two people or families have exactly the same number of points when it is used as a tie-breaker). I thought this was wrong and tried to modify the system,asking that one extra point be allocated for each year on the list. A former housing officer agreed, saying how frustrating he found it when he was about to rehouse a family who had waited a long time when he was forced to give the house to a family new on the list but with one more point. I was asked, rather condescendingly, if I didn't think houses ought to be allocated by need. I said that of course I did but that having waited was also a form of need and ought to be reflected in the points. I was defeated and told that national law would not allow what I suggested.
Some years later I found out from a housing expert who came to WODC to give a seminar, that some councils did manage to modify the system (she cited the case of one who operated bands i.e. a band from 10 to 14 points and then, within that band, how long one had waited was the decider). I tried again to get one point per year of wating but was told by the majority that 'it was too complicated'. It seems very simple to me.
I apologise for the length of this but it seemed to me important to say what actually does happen.
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