Mobility matters

Resident mobility could free up larger homes with nearly 700,000 social housing households expressing a strong desire to move

Social housing residents would benefit from the opportunity to move home through a national mobility scheme, according to a report published today by the Homes and Communities Agency and eight leading housing associations including Affinity Sutton.

Research to inform Mobility Matters: Exploring Mobility Aspirations and Options for Social Housing Residents has found that out of 4 million social housing households nationwide, nearly 680,000 expressed a strong desire to move to a different home, of which 128,000 would like to relocate to a completely different part of the country.

The report concludes that a national mobility scheme would offer residents additional housing options to meet the needs of changing households.  It would also help make the best use of existing social housing stock by freeing up much-needed larger family homes, encourage economic mobility, promote community cohesion, and assist in creating opportunities to improve quality of life.

Speaking at the launch of the report, Trevor Beattie, director of corporate strategy at the HCA, said: “We believe opening up opportunities for national mobility is an important step in helping to meet resident aspirations as well as making the best use of existing social housing and promoting community cohesion.

“We fully support the recommendations of this report, which challenges us all to improve mobility options for residents, where geographic boundaries become no obstacle.”

Vicky Bonner, of Affinity Sutton, one of the eight leading associations involved in compiling the report, said: “The report sets out some important elements for any new scheme and, importantly, identifies a demand that is currently not being met.”

Although some transfer options already exist for social housing residents, they tend to be locally focused or operated on a mutual exchange basis which relies on the compatibility of the exchanging residents.  As a result, these options will rarely be realistic for all residents.

Mobility Matters concludes that a national mobility scheme could be viable and makes recommendations for housing associations wishing to explore a pilot.  The recommendations include:

Random selection of homes to be made available through the pilot to avoid only ‘hard to let’ properties being included;

An equalisation process to ensure that over a fixed period all participating landlords would offer the same proportion of flats and family sized houses;

Harmonisation of lettings policies to prevent confusing residents with differences, for example in letting priorities; and

A review of information held on under-occupiers to see if incentives and support could encourage them to move to a home better suited to their needs, freeing up much-needed larger properties.

A representative sample of 1,280 social housing residents was interviewed, backed by focus groups with residents, landlords and their staff.  Of the residents wanting to move, most tended to be younger and/or with families and were likely to be living in a flat rather than a house.  Almost half (45%) of those wishing to move cited their current neighbourhood as the reason and 31% want or need a bigger home.  Eight per cent of residents wanted to move to be nearer to friends and family.  The South East and South West were the most popular destinations.

The proposed framework for the national mobility scheme would create additional opportunities for mobility and add to the existing sub-regional and regional mobility schemes.