Overcrowded housing made coronavirus worse.

Inside Housing have looked in some detail at the correlation between mortality from COVID-19 and housing crisis issues (shared housing, overcrowding, density). The full review is well worth a read - excellent journalism combining evidence, analysis and real human stories. Here's a few things to take away - firstly a graph:

For once (maybe the FT should take note) the graph isn't trying to prove a predetermined point, it simply shows that the more overcrowding - data from ONS and NOMIS - you have the higher the levels of COVID-19 mortality. Inside Housing go on to show the correlation extends through numbers of 'houses in multiple occupation' (HMOs), homelessness and social housing waiting lists.

It's no surprise to see that there's a relationship between cramped housing and infection rates, we see similar evidence from Singapore and New York. And other badly hit places like Madrid and Barcelona also have very overcrowded housing with associated health issues. People in these communities aremore likely to be sharing with a vulnerable person, more likely to work in crowded and exposed environments (food service, construction, transport), and more likely to rely on public transport.

It's become commonplace to point at population density as the problem but, as demographer Wendell Cox has streesed, the issue isn't population per se but rather what he calls "exposure denity", the number of close interactions with others that people have in an average day. It's clear that the poorest people in large cities are those most exposed and that two generations or more of inadequate, selfish and NIMBY-driven housing policies have been a big factor making this worse.

It's also worth noting that poor housing miught also be part of the reason for disproportionate mortality and infection among non-white minorities - Inside Housing remind us that while only 2% of UK households are overcrowed, the proportion rises to 30% for Bangladeshi households (15% for Pakistani and Black African).

I hope that, in the reaction to this clear correlation between mortality rates from COVD-19 and poor housing conditions, we begin to think about the reasons why places like London persist with high rates of overcrowding (efforts under the previous London mayor managed to push the rate down slightly but it is now rising again). Partly this is about "affordable" housing but in many respects this is a false lead - the real reason the rent's too damned high is because there is too liitle housing of all kinds. Awful decisions (by the council and the High Court) to refuse developments for too few affordable homes miss the point - yes, we need a more social housing but if a deveolment doesn't provide this accomodation is still contributes to the overall housing stock reducing housing pressures.

At the same time I'd like to see councils in inner London as well as campaign groups like Shelter start to put more pressure on government to reform urban containment policies such as the green belt and to reduce the power of NIMBYs (a minority everywhere but a vocal, influential one) to dictate local planning policies and decisions. Linked to better funding streams for social housing (support access to investment markets, allow greater flexibility on rents and a clearer grant system) this could result in better housing all round. And if delivering more housing choise, more equitable housing and healthier homes requires us to take up a few Surrey golf courses, some redundant airfield and marginal pasture land on the edge of small towns or villages with good connections to the big city, that's a small price for having a city where thousands don't die because where they live is so awful.


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Why council housing isn't any sort of solution to our housing problems

From Randall O'Toole talking about Denver, Colorado:

Affordable housing is meant to help low-income people who can’t afford housing in a free-market environment, not to bring down the price of housing for everyone. Even helping 125 families is not going to make a dent in the overall housing market, which has been rendered unaffordable by government interference in the land market.

It's the last part that matters - by making land scarce through urban containment, government makes that land expensive. And, as night follows day, the result is more expensive houses and higher rents.

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You don't want to live there, do you? A comment on sky-high house prices

I know, I know. You don't want to live on the edge of Woodside, a former council estate on the Bradford side of the Bradford-Halifax boundary. Location, location, location as the saying goes.

But stop and think for a minute. Just recently the resolution Foundation had this to say:

HOME ownership among young people across Bradford and West Yorkshire has halved in a generation.

The findings have been announced by think-tank The Resolution Foundation which said it counters “the popular perception that the struggle to get on the housing ladder is largely confined to London and the South East”.

So here we have three flats that will be sold at auction rather than through the regular market and which will end up in the private rental sector. Yet finding £5,000 for a 10% deposit and borrowing £45,000? Is this really unaffordable to working young couples in West Yorkshire?

Bradford's median full time working income is about £450 per week (was £447.1 in 2014) - let's call that two grand a month between friends. And let's further assume that twentysomethings earn two-thirds of median. A typical Bradford young couple (if such a thing exists) should be able to afford - with comfort - one of these flats.

But then, of course, you don't want to live there do you!

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Shelter should be supporting the private rental sector not trying to regulate it to death

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In an egregious piece of research (in every sense of the word), Shelter claimed - more or less - that private landlords were killing children:

Shelter’s research, released today, based on a YouGov survey carried out in November last year of 4,327 adults in England living in the private rented sector, found 44 per cent of the respondents said their child would have a better childhood if they had a more stable home.

Well not quite killing children. And not even half of the respondents either. Indeed it is true that many people living in private rented property, just like many living in the social housing sector, would have wished for a more stable place to bring up the children. However, it simply does not justify the over-the-top comments from the big Shelter boss:

Shelter’s chief executive Campbell Robb said the findings of its report Growing up renting proved ‘that today’s volatile rental market is simply not fit for purpose’.

Now I don't wish to be boring here but what Shelter are doing (egged on by the Labour Party and local council leaders who really should know better) is mounting an attack on private landlords. The idea that private landlords would prefer to kick out a tenant after six months is arrant nonsense - the volatility is mostly down to the tenants not the landlords.

If these idiots from Shelter (and the Labour Party) get their national register of landlords - doubtless under the aegis of a new regulatory body, OfRent or whatever - the result will be to raise rents, reduce supply and exacerbate housing problems in places such as London. Instead of damning landlords with exaggerated claims of their evil nature, Mr Robb should be supporting the private rental sector, helping it to meet the complicated and varied needs of people needing housing.

But then that wouldn't get a headline, would it?

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