On August
19th ‘arms length’ housing association Bolton at Home (BH) announced
a ‘no homelessness’ policy to mitigate the impact of the bedroom tax on BH
tenants. This would seem like a tenant-supporting move, but when John Dunn,
assistant director of housing services at BH, spent 7 paragraphs in the
Guardian bemoaning the ‘no eviction’ policies some housing associations (HA) have adopted –in effect arguing for
the necessity of evictions- it becomes clear that the reasoning underpinning
the ‘no homelessness’ policy are wholly economic.
According to BH’s ‘no homelessness’ policy, if a tenant is
evicted over the bedroom tax they’re given the option of moving into “another”
property. The tenant is given
one re-housing offer only and if they turn it down they can basically fuck off
somewhere else.
With 11,000 tenants in Bolton chasing 91 one-bedroom properties, it leaves the policy vacuous. With a shortage of properties to
‘downsize’ to, BH’s only option would be to shift tenants into the private
rented sector. And this, it seems, is what BH intend to do:
“We will use some of the empty properties generated by turnover in our stock to re-house affected tenants, as well as making use of private-sector leasehold properties.”
also BH:
“…would work with the private rented sector and Bolton Council to bring in suitable accommodation where possible.”
According
to BH, though, it all depends on what kind of tenant you are. The narrative
that BH concocts is that they are protecting the tenant from homelessness and
simultaneously other tenants who would be indirectly hit “if rent is not
collected.” But, like all
state-aligned institutions, BH tries to bring tenants into conflict
with each other by dividing them into good/deserving and bad/undeserving:
“’No eviction’ policies do not differentiate between those who can't pay and those who won't pay. It is unfair on those who go on struggling to pay the bedroom tax if others choose not to.”
Dunn does
not mention the possibility that tenants who “won’t pay” might also be
struggling and can’t pay,
preferring to use them as scapegoats for the failure of housing associations to
act in genuine solidarity with all tenants.
Bolton News reported in august
that:
“They [Bolton at Home] said the policy will not apply if tenants are evicted for arrears that are the result of other factors, such as deliberate non-payment.”
While Dunn
has-a-go at folk for focusing on the ‘morality’ of the bedroom tax, he uses his
own courtroom tactics to moralise over the decisions made by BH tenants, and principally how those pesky
tenants, unable to afford the fucking rent and can’t/won’t pay, are damaging
the “service standards”, “credit” and “capital improvement projects” of Bolton
at Home. Well, whoopee-fucking-do!
Meanwhile,
Dunn shows whose side he’s really
on with this mucky little outburst:
“A ‘no eviction’ policy also sets a precedent for landlords. How can they then argue that they are right to evict in cases where arrears are caused by other factors, such as government cuts to tax credits, welfare benefits, increases in non-dependant deductions, and so on?”
The chances are if you’re struggling
with the bedroom tax then you’re probably, -whether you can’t or won’t pay-
struggling with rent full stop, especially if you’re being threatened with
eviction by your HA. So, what
difference does it make if you come under the ‘no homelessness’ policy, or not,
if you’re going to get shunted into private-rented property anyways? Fuck all.
By slapping
the politically loaded term ‘homelessness’ on a mirage-of-a-policy BH merely,
and most likely briefly, score some brownie points with the Boltonian
electorate and council. If they were truly acting in the interests of their
tenants, then they would have adopted a no-evictions policy that protects all
tenants from reform and crisis. Instead, they’ve chosen to divide the Bolton at
Home tenant community and concentrate on protecting their more important capital assets: bricks and mortar.
