MEETING FOR ALL
RESIDENTS OF NOTTING HILL HOUSING AND GENESIS HA.
All residents very
welcome - tenants, shared owners and leaseholders.
WEDNESDAY 16 AUGUST
2017
6:30-8:30 pm
Westbourne Grove
Church
Westbourne Grove
London, W11 2RW
(The venue has wheel
chair access)
From Genesis Residents
What are the real reasons for the proposed merger of Notting Hill Housing and Genesis Housing Association? Why are the 170,000 NHH and Genesis residents worried. Genesis Residents explain:
So that the merged H.A can borrow more money on the private money markets to build homes which are out-of-reach for ordinary people. Both housing associations have lost sight of their original purpose.
In 2016 the National Housing Federation, the HA bosses association, said (1) that rental income is central for ,“raising private debt in order to build more homes”. Service charges and ‘management charges’ on maintenance work for leaseholders and shared owners also increase income and allow HAs to raise more private debt.
Increasing income (from rents, service charges and management charges on repairs) and a bigger asset base (our homes) means more loans for out-of-reach housing. It has very little do with protecting homes or ending the housing crisis.
In 2016 Genesis funded a report (2) by a ‘think tank’ set up by extremist conservative MPs which called for the government to give H.As a ‘deal’ – to build more out-of-reach homes based on increasing H.A debt to 60% debt and forcing up rents. Part of the deal was also that the H.As could sell their existing housing. Although lip service was paid to ‘rent caps’, HAs would be able charge whatever rent they wanted:
“Government would give the housing associations signing up complete discretion over the use of the social housing grant from housing asset sales and allow the housing associations to set their own rents for its social housing tenants.”
Neither HA has been honest with residents about the real reasons for the merger – or the likely consequences.
What will this mean for our rents and service charges?
We are concerned that there is a long term agenda to raise rents or get tenants out, to sell properties on.
What is happening is shown by Genesis’ attitude to older ‘secure tenants’. The rents for these pre-1989 tenancies are currently uncapped. Despite the fact that all 2,000 of them are retired, or nearing retirement, usually on fixed savings or pensions, Genesis has been raising their rents by up to 177%.
As Kate Davies said (3) in 2008, “housing associations should be free to use new social housing, and existing social housing…as they see fit” (our emphasis). The new Housing and Planning Act 2016 allows H.A.s to end much of the protection for residents including their rents ( a process sometimes called ‘deregulation’).
In other words the terms of tenancies, including rent, are under attack. Service and other charges may also go up with the pressure to fund more building. Neil Hadden said in an interview (4) in 2015 that Genesis was:
“really looking at our asset base and seeing what the value of that is and how we can get our hands on that value, by changing its tenure, by churning it, by selling it and using those proceeds to build more homes.”
So there appears to be a serious conflict of interest between the interests of current residents and the drive to increase the income of Genesis and Notting Hill’s (and therefore the new merged HA) by any means.
