Public opinion: Your blogs

John Healey’s ‘problem’ could be part of the solution

‘Empty homes, particularly those in disrepair, can be a magnet for vandalism, drug-taking, gangs or other forms of anti-social behaviour …this extra funding will help address that problem, making a real and visible difference to these communities.’

So says John Healey’s press release announcing £1m to help 17 local authorities deal with the problems caused by empty properties.

However, it’s a great shame that Mr Healey can’t see that the empty properties themselves can sometimes provide an opportunity to address the very problem he’s trying to solve.

Renovating empty properties can provide a great opportunity to engage young people in meaningful activity and for them to acquire skills that can equip them to secure employment.

Go to Salford, Stockton-On-Tees or Leeds, to see B4Box, Community Campus or Latch & Canopy and you’ll find brilliant projects working with a wide range of young people, busy renovating empty properties. Many of them might have been, or could easily be, the very people John Healey thinks are causing problems within their communities.

B4Box, for instance, renovates empty properties in Salford for local authorities and private owners and takes 80% of its employees from young local people on benefits who, not infrequently, have had a troubled past. They are then trained both on and off-site, to NVQ level 2 and 3 in various building skills.

Community Campus works with young people with a history of drug abuse who are renovating properties that will provide them with accommodation of their own.

This self-help approach to housing doesn’t just apply to young people with problems; there are a number of community driven self-help housing projects around the country busy renovating empty properties.

For people who won’t qualify for mainstream housing, such as singles or refugees, it’s a great way to get access to accommodation, while at same time resolving a number of other local problems.

Unfortunately, by and large, they’re left to do it with little or no support or funding from the major housing providers. Given the benefits, this seems very short-sighted, but it’s an approach which is at odds with conventional thinking. Local authorities are fazed by the sight of unquantifiable risk, while many housing associations, who in the past could have been relied on to help out, now seem happier to get on with new build.

That said, it does seem to have struck a cord with Grant Shapps who’s keen on what he sees as ‘street level regeneration’.

So Mr Healey, how about some investment in initiatives capable of both bringing empty properties back into use and also working with the very people who you thought were nothing more than ‘the problem’?