Download Free Decent Homes For All Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Decent Homes For All and write the review.

The first text available on the housing-planning interface, this book shows the relationship between planning and housing supply and addresses fundamental questions about the current housing crisis, through examining its history and evolution.
It is estimated that over a million social homes have been improved by the Department for Communities and Local Government's Decent Homes Programme, which aims to improve the condition of homes for social housing tenants. The Department has also provided funding to improve conditions for vulnerable households in private sector accommodation. The Programme has made progress and that, as of April 2009, 86 per cent of homes in the social sector were classed as decent. The Programme has also brought wider benefits such as improved housing management, tenant involvement and employment opportunities. The original target was that all social sector homes would be decent by 2010, but by November 2009 the Department was estimating that approximately 92 per cent of social housing would meet the standard by 2010, leaving 305,000 properties 'non-decent'. 100 per cent decency would not be achieved until 2018-19. The National Audit Office has concluded that there are weaknesses in the information collected by the Department, warning that information gaps create a risk to value for money. Weaknesses in the Department's information are illustrated by uncertainties over the total cost of the Programme to itself or to the sector and the number of properties improved.
This document (which is a corrected edition of the publication first issued in January 2005) sets out the Government's five year plan to create sustainable mixed communities by addressing the varied housing challenges faced in different parts of the country and improving the supply and quality of housing for everyone, including first time buyers, social tenants, key workers and private sector tenants. Proposals for reforms include: investment in housebuilding and infrastructure to tackle housing shortages in the South East, using the private finance initiative; a new Code for Sustainable Buildings, new powers to limit low density development and to protect the Green Belt; measures to help 80,000 first time buyers and an extension of the Key Worker Living scheme; a new Choice to Own scheme for council and housing association tenants; a new moveUK system to provide information about availability of jobs and homes to offer people the opportunity to move to new areas; improved quality and availability of private rented accommodation; an enhanced strategic role for local authorities in planning housing and growth; investment in housing related services to help older and disabled people live independently; and plans to address homelessness, including halving the number of households living in temporary accommodation by 2010.
Practical ideas to provide affordable housing to more Americans Much ink has been spilled in recent years talking about political divides and inequality in the United States. But these discussions too often miss one of the most important factors in the divisions among Americans: the fundamentally unequal nature of the nation’s housing systems. Financially well-off Americans can afford comfortable, stable homes in desirable communities. Millions of other Americans cannot. And this divide deepens other inequalities. Increasingly, important life outcomes—performance in school, employment, even life expectancy—are determined by where people live and the quality of homes they live in. Unequal housing systems didn’t just emerge from natural economic and social forces. Public policies enacted by federal, state, and local governments helped create and reinforce the bad housing outcomes endured by too many people. Taxes, zoning, institutional discrimination, and the location and quality of schools, roads, public transit, and other public services are among the policies that created inequalities in the nation’s housing patterns. Fixer-Upper is the first book assessing how the broad set of local, state, and national housing policies affect people and communities. It does more than describe how yesterday’s policies led to today’s problems. It proposes practical policy changes than can make stable, decent-quality housing more available and affordable for all Americans in all communities. Fixing systemic problems that arose over decades won’t be easy, in large part because millions of middle-class Americans benefit from the current system and feel threatened by potential changes. But Fixer-Upper suggests ideas for building political coalitions among diverse groups that share common interests in putting better housing within reach for more Americans, building a more equitable and healthy country.
The £40bn Decent Homes Programme has had a positive effect on the living conditions of most social housing tenants, this report finds, but the Government has failed to invest enough resources in the parallel programme to improve homes occupied by vulnerable people in the private sector. The Government must also clarify future funding: it is still unclear how the elimination of the remaining backlog of disrepair (around 3 per cent of social homes) will be funded; and how much will be available to maintain standards in the future. The Government must prevent another backlog of disrepair from building up after the current programme comes to an end in 2010. Carbon emissions reduction targets mean that the entire UK housing stock must be made more energy efficient. The decent homes standard has an important part to play and should be updated to enable this. The use of arm's-length management organisations (ALMOs) to manage council housing has led to improved standards and better planning, though not all councils were able to follow this model. The decent homes standard remains a low benchmark, however. The target for decency applied to private housing should be retained and strengthened by creating a National Indicator for private sector accommodation. A clear long term target should be set at a national level to bring all private sector homes (not just those occupied by vulnerable people) up to the decent homes standard.