I ended up watching Frank Capra’s “it’s a Wonderful Life” for the umpteenth time the other day. It’s a film that is traditionally rolled out for all the family to watch at Christmas and although it is rather schmaltzy it never fails to bring a tear to my eye. But it has a wonderful underlying message about housing and the value of community. Continue reading →

Policy Exchange is a very influential think tank, so their output is worth taking seriously. But their latest report, which proposes that housing associations should be able to opt for “Free Housing Association” status as a way of boosting housing supply, is confused, confusing and dangerous. Continue reading →

Having written 157 blogs for Inside Housing over the past four years you might have noticed that I’ve been silent since mid-August. This is because, for the past seven weeks I have been travelling across North America. I started in Vancouver on the 4th September, travelled by car, boat and train down the west coast to San Francisco, and then, between the 19th September and the 20th October I drove with a friend from San Francisco to Manhattan, via New Orleans. I’ve been through 19 states and dozens of cities. Along the way, we managed to sit in on a murder trial in Texas, to stand on the rostrum where Martin Luther King made his last speech on the night before his assassination, and experience a near-fatal car crash south of Memphis. It was my sixth visit to the USA.

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I took part in a live discussion on the Guardian website yesterday on the role of social housing, which generated quite a debate. One contributor, the CEO of a large London association, said this:

‘Social housing is now a damaged brand. Housing associations need to return to their roots – yes, housing those without work, but housing the low-to-average-waged, too. We need to reclaim our landlord role and control who we let to. For us we would give greater priority to those who work locally. We could house the local school’s teaching assistant and the local hospital’s health staff.’ Continue reading →