Deputy Steve Williams highlighted the multi-faceted housing crisis facing the island’s essential workers. He underscored the fact that there is no “easy fix” to this urgent crisis. The Deputy called attention to the 2017 KPMG report. Mostly, it showed that there are enough bedrooms out there; the struggle is actually with the distribution part of the supply-demand equation.
In a recent keynote speech to the Association of Chief Police Officers, Deputy Williams made the case for good-quality, safe housing. His testimony claimed that improving housing would make workers’ neighborhoods more desirable, reduce health care costs, and increase education performance.
To meet urgent needs, Deputy Williams recommended looking into non-congregate emergency housing options. So he suggested deploying these temporary shelters as a way to house all of London’s rough sleepers. There has got to be buildings out there we can use temporarily to help solve this problem,” he continued, “preferably at little or no cost.
Deputy Williams explained how bad the current housing market, which has “seized up.” He remarked that the pending state construction projects have created a terrible “log jam.” He expressed concern over the rising rents that some tenants face, indicating a need for measures to curb “unreasonable increases” from a minority of landlords.
“We know there’s a [hidden homelessness] problem, we know we need to do something about it,” – Deputy Steve Williams
Deputy Williams went on to denounce the present subsidies meant to lure essential personnel such as police and educators. He explained that these subsidies “do not seem justifiable” when considered through a business lens. He suggested creating States-owned “key worker housing” offered at “reasonable” rents to ensure that these subsidies do not merely benefit private landlords.
He pointed out that the last Labour States introduced a £10,000 tax allowance to people renting out spare rooms to lodgers. This new program is designed to help address housing supply shortages. He admitted that this wouldn’t be enough to fix the bigger problems that are hurting our housing market.
Providing emergency housing was Deputy Williams’s top priority. He sounded hopeful that new emergency housing pods would start popping up within the next 12 months. He warned that it was important to “under-promise and over-deliver” to avoid raising public expectations too high.
“I am about delivery. I’m not here to do this job as pushing paper around and building up some reports that sit on the shelves.” – Deputy Steve Williams
He wrapped up by reiterating how complex the housing problem is, reminding all of us that it’s not just about housing. It’s a lot, lot broader than just having a roof over your head,” he said. He knew poor housing conditions not only keep people living in harmful environments, they deepen our social ills.
