Friday, January 28, 2011
Night shelter
Following the post below about homelessness, last night I visited a temporary night shelter being run by volunteers and a church organisation for rough sleepers in the city. The numbers they are dealing with confirm that very few people sleep rough in Dundee; but at the same time a small number of people do sleep rough, for a whole variety of reasons. I hope the project will show whether there are other things the Council should be doing to help this very small number of rough sleepers find their way to the various hostels and other accommodation which exists in the city. When the project reports back, I'll write more on this subject.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Homelessness
A bit of a discussion has been going on in the Evening Tele. Someone called "Housing Observer" was wondering why the Council is demolishing houses when there are so many homeless people in Dundee. I wrote back with the figures.
The Council has around 900 households with homeless priority on its waiting list at any one time. In December of 2010 we had around 170 households in council provided temporary accommodation.
Some houses we have to demolish because they are in such poor condition. But since taking over the Council the SNP has decided to retain six multi storey blocks which would have been demolished under previous plans. We are now investing in them to improve security and, we hope, make them easier to heat.
At the foot of the Hilltown the Dallfield multis are being transformed. Good news is coming shortly about the much trailed recladding scheme, with a combined heat and power scheme to make them energy efficient and far more comfortable. Already there are very few vacancies in these multis, which used to be amongst the most sought after council houses in the city. They will be again!
Sadly it was too late to save the Derby Street multis. People have mixed feelings about their demolition. Some see it as a waste of 374 potentially attractive homes. Others are eagerly looking forward to more light, better views and new, more attractive houses being built in the area.
The credit crunch and Housing Benefit cuts will drive more and more people to the Council's door looking for decent huosing which they can afford. Our job is to provide that housing, keep standards up and balance the budget. There are some difficult times ahead, but we're making real progress.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
2011 rent increase
At last night's meeting of the Housing Committee I was forced to rule a motion by Cllr Fraser MacPherson out of order. I have no wish to stifle democratic debate, but Cllr MacPherson made a procedural mistake which left me with little choice.
The rent setting process has two stages ... firstly the Policy and Resources committee sets the budget, then the Housing Committee sets the rent. By law the rent increase must be enough to cover the budget - we are not allowed to subsidise council house rents.
This means that anyone who wants to propose a lower rent increase must first put a motion to the Policy & Resources Committee, cutting something out of the budget.
Cllr MacPherson prepared such a motion, but for reasons unknown failed to put that motion to P&R. As I understand it he had wanted to cut £500,000 off the budgets for preparing relets.
This meant that his proposal to reduce the rent increase would have led to what I would regard as an illegal budget. We would have been half a million short.
In these circumstances I had no option but to rule his motion as incompetent.
It was a long night with a three and a half hour discussion of the biomass plant coming before the housing budget, and it is unfortunate that Cllr MacPherson made this mistake.
In case anyone should imagine that my ruling was an attempt to stifle debate, the rent increase was the subject of a two month consultation; we sent every tenant information about the increase and invited views; and we held open events where tenants could put questions directly to officials.
We also set out the three options at a previous Housing Committee and debated a similar motion from Cllr MacPherson at that time. And last night we chose the lowest of the three options.
No-one wants to put rents up, but we have a legal obligation, imposed by the Scottish Government with all party support, to bring our council houses up to the very basic Scottish Housing Quality Standard. We need to spend around £30 million in this year alone to do that, most of it borrowed. We need to raise rents to cover the cost of that borrowing.
On the other hand, the work we are doing in thousands of homes involves installing new efficient gas central heating systems. They are cheaper to run than most electric systems and tenants will save money as a result.
The rent setting process has two stages ... firstly the Policy and Resources committee sets the budget, then the Housing Committee sets the rent. By law the rent increase must be enough to cover the budget - we are not allowed to subsidise council house rents.
This means that anyone who wants to propose a lower rent increase must first put a motion to the Policy & Resources Committee, cutting something out of the budget.
Cllr MacPherson prepared such a motion, but for reasons unknown failed to put that motion to P&R. As I understand it he had wanted to cut £500,000 off the budgets for preparing relets.
This meant that his proposal to reduce the rent increase would have led to what I would regard as an illegal budget. We would have been half a million short.
In these circumstances I had no option but to rule his motion as incompetent.
It was a long night with a three and a half hour discussion of the biomass plant coming before the housing budget, and it is unfortunate that Cllr MacPherson made this mistake.
In case anyone should imagine that my ruling was an attempt to stifle debate, the rent increase was the subject of a two month consultation; we sent every tenant information about the increase and invited views; and we held open events where tenants could put questions directly to officials.
We also set out the three options at a previous Housing Committee and debated a similar motion from Cllr MacPherson at that time. And last night we chose the lowest of the three options.
No-one wants to put rents up, but we have a legal obligation, imposed by the Scottish Government with all party support, to bring our council houses up to the very basic Scottish Housing Quality Standard. We need to spend around £30 million in this year alone to do that, most of it borrowed. We need to raise rents to cover the cost of that borrowing.
On the other hand, the work we are doing in thousands of homes involves installing new efficient gas central heating systems. They are cheaper to run than most electric systems and tenants will save money as a result.
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