West London Housing Partnership
Tackling Overcrowding
Making best use of stock
Demand for social housing is high. Across West London, there are more households who need a home than social homes available to house them in. At the same time, new supply of housing is slow. For many households waiting to transfer, this can mean living in overcrowded conditions, or utilising only a small portion of a property. As landlords, we need to focus on mobility into, out of, and between units of social housing stock to achieve a better fit of households in our stock.
Living in overcrowded conditions can have a huge impact on the quality of people’s lives. It can cause enormous tensions within a household, effect the educational attainment of children and have a negative impact on people’s health. For some households, the delay in finding appropriately sized property can be exasperating and our teams work directly with households looking for ways to ease the crowding, such as storage options, and use of public facilities for homework. In some cases this means assisting some of the adult members of the household to move on and access employment and training.
Finding suitable alternative accommodation for underoccupiers is key to making the best use of social stock in the sub-region. An appropriately sized property is more affordable and more manageable for tenants when their household circumstances have changed. Alternative housing can be found locally, within the borough, sub-regionally or nationally.
Choice Based Letting, active within the sub region (click here to find out more about West London CBL) relies on properties becoming void before being advertised and re-let, and this process can be slow. Mutual exchanges between tenants in the sub-region is promoted as an alternative way of finding a more suitable property, and increase the number of tenants rehoused into more suitable housing.
A sub-regional approach
The West London Project Group for mobility meets on a regular basis and consists of representatives from each borough and key housing association partners. The group continually develop new and improve existing projects, share best practice, and support the teams into making the best use of stock.
A sub-regional coordinator manages activities in the sub-region that aim to tackle overcrowding, underoccupation, and mobility in social housing. For information and general enquiries regarding this area of work, please contact Rachel Ormerod (Head of the West London Housing Partnership, rachel.ormerod@lbhf.gov.uk).
Last updated: 01 May 2013