November 22, 2018
Which housing tenure receives most subsidy? Inside Housing readers know that the question isn’t a simple one and that the obvious answer – social housing – isn’t necessarily correct. The quest for a full analysis has just been boosted by housing finance experts Peter Williams and Steve Wilcox, whose report Dreams and Reality looks not just at support for housing investment but at all the other ways – benefits, taxation, tax relief and regulation – by which government interacts with the different sectors.
Continue reading “The mess of government intervention in housing”
Category: Housing | Tags: private rented sector, housing investment, housing benefit, homeownership, housing associations |
November 19, 2018
Irish housing associations (‘approved housing bodies’) have had their finances reclassified so that they are part of local government, causing consternation in the sector at the threat of greater state control. This article is a response to this decision from a UK perspective, where housing associations recently faced a similar problem that has since been resolved.
Continue reading “‘Reclassification’ is the spectre in Irish housing”
Category: Housing | Tags: borrowing rules, housing finance, housing associations |
October 25, 2018
Carl David Goette-Luciak at a road barricade in Nicaragua
by Nan McCurdy
There has been a great deal of inaccurate and biased reporting about Nicaragua written in support of regime change and presenting a false narrative of what occurred in the Nicaraguan uprising. The article below is about a self-trained reporter, Carl David Goette-Luciak, who was the source of consistently biased reporting which had an agenda — provide support for the violent US-funded coup. He regularly wrote for The Guardian, an outlet that continues to be biased in its coverage.
Continue reading “Why Didn’t Carl David Goette-Luciak Report on the Torture He Witnessed?”
Category: Latin America | Tags: Nicaragua, US intervention, Masaya, Nicaragua crisis |
October 25, 2018
Theresa May’s announcement that borrowing caps on council housing investment will be removed was a big step in the right direction, and the issuing of draft regulations appears to confirm that the caps will be lifted at the end of this month. With reports of a Treasury fight-back, the concern was that restrictions could have been imposed, as happened when the Autumn Budget announced the now defunct earlier scheme to allow £1 billion of extra borrowing headroom for selected authorities. James Brokenshire’s latest letter to councils aims to set minds at rest.
It was reported that the Treasury believed that councils could soon borrow as much as £1 billion extra each year. The worry is that talk of this level of investment could set councils up to fail. It implies they are able to gear up quickly to produce more than 8,000 new homes annually, but this will take time given that they currently build only a quarter of this number (although there may be some undercounting). And even with the removal of the caps, there are several other obstacles to be overcome.
Continue reading “Lifting the HRA borrowing cap should come with accounting changes”
Category: Housing | Tags: council housing, borrowing rules, housing finance, housing investment |
September 13, 2018
Despite all the fuss about migration levels, the numbers applying for asylum in the UK are at historically low levels. They ran at over 100,000 annually in the early noughties, then fell to around 30,000 per year and are back near that level again after another short peak linked to the migrant crisis in the rest of Europe. Most people who apply for asylum in the UK are turned down, but the proportion ultimately successful is rising, from consistently under a third a decade ago to over 40% now. The low numbers could have eased pressure on asylum accommodation, where applicants can live while awaiting decisions on their cases, but the Home Office is its own worst enemy in this respect: it has a backlog of nearly 15,000 unresolved cases over six months old (and some very much older than that).
Asylum seekers don’t have to accept accommodation, but those who would otherwise be destitute can apply for it. Before 2000 there were few if any asylum seekers living in Scotland – then Glasgow was chosen as one of the accommodation ‘dispersal areas’ after a change in government policy towards moving asylum seekers away from the south-east of England. At the time, the idea was to use surplus council flats (the same happened in other places, mainly in the Midlands and north of England). The Home Office set up contracts with local authorities to administer ‘dispersal’ and provide housing. From the start, this was on a no-rent basis – the person housed would get a flat, some furniture and white goods, and a very basic subsistence allowance (now £37.75 per week). Councils like Glasgow – still the only one in Scotland – could use surplus funds from the contract to fund community services. Glasgow set up a series of neighbourhood networks to support communities where newcomers were being housed.
Continue reading “Asylum seekers in Scotland – what’s the background to the SERCO contract issues?”
Category: Housing, Migration | Tags: asylum |
September 10, 2018
Sandinista Nicaraguans march for Peace and Justice for their dead, wounded, and disappeared. Managua, September 8, 2018.
This article is by Camilo Mejia, an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience because he refused duty in the US army in Iraq, who is also son of the famous Nicaraguan singer Carlos Mejia Godoy.
In its September 7 article, the once progressive Guardian reports that Nicaragua was brought to a standstill by a general strike called by the Civic Alliance, one of the main opposition coalitions behind the attempted soft coup, citing how banks and upscale shopping malls in Managua are all closed in support of the strike. What The Guardian fails to mention is that those upscale businesses only represent a small portion within the Nicaraguan sector, which is mostly driven by micro, small, and mid-size businesses that are part of the country’s popular market economy, which in turn employs about 90 percent of the country’s workers. In truth, commerce was business as usual throughout Nicaragua, as these images show.
Continue reading “The Guardian continues its shameless misinformation campaign against Nicaragua and its people”
Category: Latin America | Tags: Nicaragua, US intervention, Nicaragua crisis |
August 15, 2018
There is so much misinformation on the left about recent events in Nicaragua that it is a pity that Mary Ellsberg’s article for Pulse has added to it. She says that recent articles often ‘paint a picture of the crisis in Nicaragua that is dangerously misleading’. Unfortunately, her own article is subject to just that criticism. It looks at the situation entirely from the perspective of those opposing Daniel Ortega’s government. It is an incomplete depiction of what is happening, ignores many facts that have come to light and has been outdated by recent events. This is a brief response to her main points from someone who lives in Nicaragua and has observed the situation directly.
Continue reading “Misinformation on Nicaragua: It was a coup, not a massacre”
Category: Latin America | Tags: Nicaragua, US intervention, Masaya, Nicaragua crisis |
August 9, 2018
For three months Daniel Ortega and his government in Nicaragua were under intense pressure to resign – from protesters and opposition groups, from local media and from right-wing politicians in the US. But while the international pressure continues, in mid-July it became clear that, for the time being at least, the opposition no longer has sufficient local support to achieve its goal. Despite persistent images of near-collapse painted by the international press, the country appears to be returning to something close to normality. How did a protest that seemed so strong when it began, lose momentum so quickly?
Continue reading “Nicaragua’s failed coup”
Category: Latin America | Tags: Nicaragua, US intervention, Nicaragua crisis |
August 4, 2018
Leaving the European Union is supposed to free us from red tape. Depending whether Brexit is hard or soft, it could give Britain more freedom to set its own rules. Will this be of any benefit to the housing sector? Let’s look at some of the possible changes.
EU procurement rules are one example. Ending them could eventually create more freedom, but in the short term the public sector will still need to comply with the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. Future trade agreements are also likely to come with new procurement rules, covering issues such as openness, fairness, transparency and non-discrimination. So the changes might not be very great. But if the UK did get more freedom, reforms might for example allow tenders to be restricted to British firms. As CIH already advises, contracts can and should anyway take into account the ‘social value’ that can be obtained: this shouldn’t change.
Continue reading “Will housing receive a ‘red tape bonus’ from Brexit?”
Category: Housing, Migration | Tags: migration policy, housing investment, housing associations |
July 27, 2018
A masked man holds a homemade mortar during protests against the government of Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega. Photo: Marvin Recinos/AFP/Getty Images
Following the Guardian’s rejection of a longer letter with multiple signatories on this issue, they accepted this shorter one.
Your report says Daniel Ortega, Nicaragua’s president, is facing a “nationwide revolt” by “peaceful” protesters (Ortega decries ‘terrible lies’ over protest deaths in rare interview, 25 July). I live in the city of Masaya, which was under opposition control for three months, with the streets blocked by hundreds of barricades. Here, briefly, is what happened.
Continue reading “Opposition behind the violence in Nicaragua”
Category: Latin America | Tags: Nicaragua, Masaya, Nicaragua crisis |
John Perry lives in Masaya, Nicaragua where he works on