Inverness Has Huge Waiting List For Social Housing But Caithness and Sutherland have very low lists

2nd September 2020

The Housing and Property committee of Highland council at its meeting on 9 September 2020 will discuss housing issues including he waiting lists for homes

Housing Demand

There were a total of 7,785 ‘Housing' and ‘Transfer' List applications held at the end of

2019/20 compared to 7,890 in 2018/19. Need for affordable housing does not appear to be significantly reducing. 72% of these applicants are looking to move as ‘new' (not transferring) tenants. They are mostly privately renting or living with family. Almost 1,000

households are living in temporary ‘homeless' accommodation or are ‘homeless at home'. Many of these homeless households, particularly in Inverness, are young people or families with children.

The continuing need for smaller sized properties is clear. Half of all applicants are single people and only 10% are couples. Four of 10 applicants are families. This varies across Highland.

The highest demand for housing in terms of the number of applications remains Inverness (where 39% of all applicants want to be housed), followed by Ross and Cromarty (20%) and Lochaber (12%).

However, whilst around 4 out of 10 applicants are seeking housing in the Inverness area, the lack of housing availability means that less than 3 out of 10 (30%) lets are made there.

The pressure on housing varies across Highland. This means that applicants whose need for housing is less acute are able to receive offers of housing more quickly in some areas than applicants with more acute housing needs in other areas. Analysis of the number applying for each house being let indicates that the pressure on social rented housing is greatest in Nairn, followed by, respectively, Badenoch and Strathspey, Inverness and Mid Ross. Housing pressure in those four areas is far greater than the Highland average.

Pressures also vary significantly across communities within areas for example within the communities of Aviemore and West Lochaber. It continues to be relatively easier to access affordable housing in Caithness and in areas of Sutherland.

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Meeting Demand

Across Highland, 1,800 households were housed in 2019/20. The increase year-on-year is a result of the new build programme. It should be noted that around 25% of offers were refused and officers are analysing the reasons for this.

The majority of lets continue to be into Council housing (62% of lets), followed by Albyn HS (21%); Cairn HA (7%); Lochaber HA (4%); Lochalsh & Skye HA (3%) and Pentland HA (3%).

Social rented housing providers have a legal duty to give a ‘reasonable preference' to priority groups when allocating housing. This includes households who have nowhere safe and secure that they can reasonably stay and so are homeless, and households

who are living under unsatisfactory conditions and who have unmet housing needs.

The HHR partners are continuing to meet their duties and house households who are homeless. Across Highland 718 lets, 39% of all lets went to households with points which reflected their homeless status. Although this is similar to previous years, applications show that the number of households becoming homeless is increasing.

6.5 In areas where there is a greater lack of housing homeless points play a more significant role in leading to a let. For example, 55% of all Inverness areas lets were to homeless households (excluding transfers, this equates to 75% of ‘Housing List' lets).

6.6 Across each of the different areas, all the Highland Housing Register landlords house a similar proportion of homeless households. This demonstrates the important role of Highland's housing associations in meeting the wide range of social housing needs including homelessness.

Analysis of the proportion of lets to the other various housing needs groups, compared to demand from applicants with those needs, shows that the HHR Allocations Policy is largely meeting its objectives to provide housing to those with the greatest needs. A

quarter of those who were housed had been living in housing which was unsuitable due to their health and social care needs. A quarter had been living in overcrowded housing.

As well as approaches directly from applicants, HHR partners are committed to assisting with other policy priorities. Twenty-five households were helped to move into their first ‘independent living' tenancy, many via our Protocol with NHS Highland, as they have

complex continuing health care and support needs. Nineteen care experienced young people were housed through the Highland Protocol which supports our Corporate Parenting commitments and duties.

Over 8 out of 10 applicants housed had additional points which recognised they had a particular ‘Need to Reside’ in that community because either because they work or are already established there; or are providing or receiving family care or support.

We monitor equalities to make sure we are providing equality of access and no discrimination. In line with the previous year, 76% of applicants described themselves as Scottish. This group accounted for 79% of those housed applicants; 7% of lets went to non-British/White households; and around 3% of lets went to other ethnic minorities. The proportion of lets to households describing themselves as disabled matched the proportion of applicants doing so (18% of lets and applicants).

Read the full paper at https://www.highland.gov.uk/meetings/meeting/4309/housing_and_property_committee