Mikhail Riches’ retrofitting of a brutalist housing estate in Park Hill, Sheffield. ![]() RG+P Architects working with Dacorum Borough Council on reusing brownfield sites in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, and surrounding areas.Further Mikhail Riches designs for seven sites for York City Council, two of which are under construction.Back-to-back housing on McGrath Road in the London Borough of Newham by Peter Barber Architects.A housing scheme at Goldsmith Road in Norwich by architecture firm Mikhail Riches for Norwich City Council.The report’s exemplars include both new housing and retrofitting existing dwellings: It notes that the bulk of new social and affordable dwellings would need to be provided by local authorities. It argues that new housing should be a mix of social-rent housing, partially discounted affordable housing, and dwellings to be sold or rented at full market value, both to subsidise the costs of the social housing and to prevent ghettoisation. The report also spells out how its social and affordable housing targets could be met and highlights recent successful examples of affordable and sustainable housing that could be scaled nationally. It is widely acknowledged people who are homeless or in precarious housing suffer worse physical and mental health and poorer access to health care, leading to higher healthcare costs and more disability benefits. This includes increased council, income and corporation tax revenue and greater economic growth and productivity, as well as reductions in the extensive health and social costs associated with homelessness. ![]() The report, by a cross-disciplinary team from UCL, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, lays out the wider economic benefits of building more social and affordable housing. This summarises the evidence on the health and wider social impacts, the economic costs and savings, and highlights exemplars of social and affordable housing which can feasibly be scaled nationally.” Our report does not rely on polemic but on published data. By comparison there are approximately 150,000 homes built annually by private housebuilders.Ĭo-author Professor Rosalind Raine (UCL Applied Health Research) said: “The housing crisis impacts on individuals, families and communities directly and indirectly. It is possible to tackle the holy grail of improving everyone’s lives, with benefits accruing the fastest for the most vulnerable. The savings estimate is based on the report’s proposal that government subsidy be gradually raised up to £5 billion a year over the next five years or so (up from £1 billion currently), to enable the building of 72,000 additional social/affordable homes a year (over and above the 28,000 a year currently). This scale of saving is possible because the costs of homelessness in the UK, encompassing people in temporary accommodation and insecure or inadequate housing as well as rough sleepers, are an estimated £6.5 billion a year, according to the report. This figure, the report says, is an under-estimate, as it does not include all the costs in these sectors, or wider beneficial impacts on economic growth, productivity and life chances. The report says that reductions of costs in the areas of housing and other benefits, in health, social, homeless and criminal justice services, and in unemployment and children’s lost education, would lead to savings of £1.5 billion annually, if homelessness were reduced to a minimal level. The report, published today, coincides with the launch of the Social and Affordable Housing Initiative, a coalition led by UCL, internationally renowned architects John McAslan + Partners and Dolphin Living affordable housing charity, to establish impactful strategies to address Britain’s housing crisis. The coalition brings together experts from multiple sectors, including architects, engineers, public health specialists, charities, as well as the public and private sector. ![]() Investing significantly more in social and affordable housing could save the UK government an estimated £1.5 billion a year overall by eliminating substantial costs related to homelessness, according to a new report led by UCL researchers.
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