Overseas housing
Housing: The future is inclusive By Taylor Skirda, Culture, Diversity and Inclusion Coordinator, Ottawa Community Housing Corporation Working in community housing, you quickly realise it’s all about the people. It’s about the employees within our organisations who want to make a difference in the communities they work in, and it’s about the tenants who […]
A life in 15 questions
Gulam Hussain Head of Regulatory Assurance and Neighbourhoods, Tower Hamlets Homes 1 Tell us about your career and how you ended up in your current role Like many in the sector, I didn’t plan on joining the world of housing and fell into it by chance. I started off life working initially in […]
The last word
Wexit and ffarwel gynnes i gymru By Victoria Slade, Group Chief Executive, Cynon Taf Community Housing (Chief Executive at Guernsey Housing Association from October) As a relative newcomer to Wales of 11 years, I’m probably not yet qualified to explain all of the reasons why it’s a superior place to live and work. […]
From the Chief Executive…We need to step up on professionalisation
It’s time to get a lot more professional. That’s the message coming loud and clear from the Grenfell Inquiry, ITV News and far too many Ombudsman reports. So, what’s gone wrong and how do we fix it? Firstly, we’ve got to see things from the customer’s point of view and act on it. Tenants aren’t […]
The rent cap: It’s one step forwards and two steps back for housing business plans
By Alistair McIntosh and Ian Parker. The cost-of-living crisis is coming home to roost. Our government is trying to get prices under control and now it’s our turn. For most of the summer well-informed rumours of a rent cap have been circulating. And so, it’s come to pass. Here are the main points from […]
Combining retrofit action with tackling health inequalities
Housing retrofit is an essential public health intervention, writes Annika Hjelmskog from the University of Glasgow. We cannot meet our climate change targets without decarbonising our housing stock, and the CCC has repeatedly identified large gaps in existing policy efforts. This urgent priority creates an opportunity to reduce the health harms associated with fuel poverty […]
Risk of early death increases with homelessness and other disadvantage
The grim links between poor health and homelessness are brought into the spotlight once again, in a study from Glasgow. Researchers writing in The Lancet tracked the links between an early death and people experiencing homelessness, drug addiction, prison and psychosis. Gathering data from more than half a million Glasgow residents over a five-year span, […]
The high cost of building homes in wildfire hazard areas
How can the need for new homes be met in areas that are at risk of wildfire? That’s the question posed by researchers from California, USA, which has seen devastating fires in recent years. California is increasingly experiencing extreme weather, including wildfires – and the pace at which the wildfires have ignited has dramatically risen […]
What does ‘affordable’ housing mean?
A study from Italy has questioned how the country’s affordable rents policy is working in practice. Italy part-funds construction of new affordable housing for people on lower incomes. This housing is termed ‘social housing’ although it isn’t intended for people in the greatest need and poverty. Instead it’s created for people in an intermediate situation […]
Taiwan placemaking offers a new approach in social housing
A fascinating study from Taiwan considers the island’s very new social housing policies, and how community building can be enhanced. Researchers outline the approach to Taiwan’s social housing, almost all of which has been built in the last decade. The programme is government-driven, with local authorities doing the construction and contracting the management to outside […]