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Another project I was working on at Inside Housing, but which has only been published this week. A survey and analysis of 73 housing associations, councils, and a handful of ALMOs (Arms-length Management Organisations) on the impact of the Bedroom Tax (aka the under-occupancy penalty).
Check out the full story here:Â Tenants choose to stay and pay Bedroom Tax.
Last week I did a work experience placement at Inside Housing magazine, a trade mag mainly aimed at social housing professionals. It was a week dominated by the Bedroom Tax and the Budget, and a great place to work at.
Here’s a selection of  articles with bylines from the week:
Tory council to force 21-year-olds to share rooms – where digging into the background papers to a press release really came in handy.
Bedroom tax faces second legal challenge – a good story we were first to report on.
Landlord apologises for ‘patronising’ welfare advice
Scottish landlord signs deal with north east group
Universal credit threatens eviction amnesty
HCA staff strike over pay offer
Developers pledge to build more homesÂ
Tessa Shepperson and the folk at Landlord Law and EasyLaw Training put on a conference this week to provide an overview of housing law for landlords. I provided the live blog, which you can see here. Particularly interesting for me was learning about the differences between tenancies and licenses – something which came up a lot when I was researching my post on property guardians.
For four years I was a City Councillor, serving on the opposition benches under an incredibly frustrating Cabinet system. Here’s an article I written for the Guardian on councils abandoning the ‘Cabinet system’ and returning to the ‘Committee System’.
“Committees are back in local government. Despite the idea once being derided for creating camels instead of horses, a small but influential group of councils are returning once again – under the powers of the Localism Act – to the system of collective decision making by an appointed group.” Read more here.Â
I wrote this short post after seeing a 500% interest advert is the window of a payday lenders in Hackney a while back. A vibrant community finance movement could help tackle the problems caused by high-interest loans peddled to the most vulnerable.
“In 1966 the film Cathy Come Home depicted the struggle of a once happy family thrown into poverty and misery after father and husband Reg is injured and loses his job.” Read more
Samir Jeraj - Freelance Journalist 