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i'd love to be able to get a social housing property

i'm disabled, live in an inappropriate property for me needs but cant get what i need especially as i occasionally need a second bedroom for a carer

Appointing a commisioner does not necessarily solve problems, and would probably only serve as a place for people to aim their frustrations rather than be a tool for change.

If the commissioner has power, ok. If not, not.

I believe it will certainly help tenants to get their voices heard. Of course, some LAs and HAs are excellent with their tenants, but others may not be. If it helps fairness and can deal with grievances, then it can only be a good thing, but fairness on all sides is imperative.

A Commissioner for Social Housing would be good but to be effective he would need to be supported by legislation and a large back-up team of qualified people to be able to enforce his decisions.
The biggest problem today is the Conservative Party mistakenly think that market forces will resolve the housing problem.
The Government must change their policies to actually help the community to resolve the Housing problem.
I believe that that Estate Agents should not be involved in letting residential properties unless they sign up to a code of practice.
I believe that all Houses and Flats to be let out should have minimum square footage sizes, and which must include a separate kitchen, bathroom, toilet and living room and be for a prior agreed number of residents.
All properties to be rented out must be licensed by the Local Council for a reasonable Licence fee. The Fee must include an inspection by Surveyors appointed to ensure to properties do not have any damp, all the electrics and gas are of a safe standard and the owners have bought an approved Property Maintenance Insurance Bond which is registered with the Local Authority.
All properties that do not meet the terms of the Rental licence should be compulsorily purchased by the Local Authority, refurbished to an acceptable standard and let out by the Local Authority as social housing.

There is a large office block on the North Circular road that has been empty for at least fifteen years why can't this be knocked down and flats built? You could get a lot of properties on that footprint and house a lot of people but it seems it better to leave it empty and let it get vandalised.
There should be some sort of process that if any properties( both residential and commercial) have been empty for a considerable amount of time then they local authority should have the power to compulsory purchase and convert it to social or affordable housing

An independent Commissioner for Social Housing Residents! Another title another salary and I suspect they will have no power and will be ignored when policy is being developed. They would need to have some form of power to be able to do any good.

Yes a good idea but only if s/he has some powers to achieve recommendations; just another chat room for airing grievances would be a waste of time and monehy.

AS I was recently reminded, the purpose of social housing was to create properties that were available to ordinary working people at a controlled rent so that people could go to work and live in their own homes without being exploited by unscrupulous landlords. They would also have the dignity of not having to claim housing benefit in order to live. It also meant that ordinary people were protected from the consequences of unrestricted and uncontrolled market forces and were given a buffer against the kind of profiteering that is only too evident today in residential housing.
There is a clear need for someone to be accountable at the highest level particularly when social housing is under attack from central government policy. It is unsupportable that social housing rents should be in any way linked to the volatile and fictitious figure of "market rents" and should instead reamain linked to the salaries of the lowest paid workers who are those who are most likely to need them. People shouldn't have to become financial slaves just to have a roof over their heads.
There needs to be REAL affordability and not this current mockery of a system which has so distorted the word "affordable".

We need to protect the social housing we already have instead of flogging it off to developers. Kahn hasnt done that. And we need to build more decent social housing. Will a commissioner do that?

This is just one more example of Sadiq trying to blame other people and create an impression of doing something for Londoners whilst actually doing nothing.
It is time our mayor got out from behind his desk, made his own decisions and actually did something useful. you cannot spend a full term in office trying to criticize central government and develop a position as an official opposition figure.

If the lead person of this is a social tenant her/himself with relevant expertise, and there are plenty of other diverse tenants paid to contribute, and it is not another layer of comfortably-waged people kindly patronising the plebs with hideous engagement exercises, it is good.

I agree, a commissioner would be a start to redress the Tory Policy to decimate Social Housing under the guise of austerity.

Some other suggestions...

Firstly, take all Social Housing away from Council/Local Authority control. All social housing should be managed by Housing Associations or charitable not for profits with no political leanings.

The term 'Affordable Housing' should never be used for Social Housing. It has only Tory MPs an excuse to include properties let more like private accommodation, just 20% cheaper than current market rents.

Scrap bedroom tax and allow greater freedom for social tenants to (short term) sublet, holiday let rooms, etc. and take in lodgers (priority for those on housing waiting lists).

I could go on.

am a social housing renter, the sector needs all the help it can get

I was born in London
I joined the social housing register at the age of 16,27 years later I signed my first social housing tenancy.
So far all my adult life I am lucky to have been in paid employment this is down to me working hard.

Having had this social housing tenancy for five years now. I have reported to my social housing landlord within these five years. That mortar continues to fall off the roof of my home. My social housing landlord had put the plumbing for the washing machine in what was the old outside toilet every time I need to use the washing machine I have to get address go out into the outside garden and then open the door to what was the old outside toilet in order to use the washing machine. The kitchen is not fit for purpose; only one person can be in the kitchen at any one time, there is no food preparation workspace. When I try to open the door to the oven the oven door hits the base unit to the kitchen sink that is opposite to the oven/cooker. So the oven door cannot open safely, I have to lean sideways to take hot food out of the oven

If I hadn't taken this property as seen I was told in writing that I would loose my housing priority. All I want is for my landlord to address these issues. My housing provider just seems to drag tenants through complaints procedures stage1, stage 2 and so on just trying to wear tenants down, hopping us social housing tenants just given up and shut up.

Yes their needs to by some sort of social housing commissioning body/panel made up of people that have lived in social housing and that is independent of Government and Social housing providers.

I get very angry when ministers etc keep referring to social housing as " AFFORDABLE HOUSING"! Properties are only affordable if you are within that budget/income. Most people are NOT!!!!! Change the wording and lower some of the rents within the councils and housing associations. This needs addressing ASAP.

While broadly positive, my main concerns with the proposals are:

- How many affordable homes are planned to be built, and what is the baseline for "affordable"? I would hope it would be accessible to the 70% of Londoners who earn less than £30k, especially as a substantial amount can only afford properties with the aid of housing benefit, and those who have dependents also have to ensure they have money for childcare and/or carers.

- Also it's worrying if land ownership will go to developers rather than councils. It may prioritise profit over accessibility, as developers are running a business, not a public service.

- I feel the most important thing is to give residents a loud voice in this matter. It would be good if a small group of residents with housing know-how had a seat at the table when the proposals for the change in housing policy are finialised.

The Councils or Commissioners office if it happens, need to do a thorough AUDIT on social housing properties.

There is a corrupted issue that needs to be addressed:
It has become apparent that many social housing residents are illegally subletting their dwellings , either cash to illegal immigrants or peddling them on rental internet platforms for flats, rooms etc.

Many people genuinely in need of social housing are left out , as properties have been given to others who make a business out of it hoping they will not be found out. They should be found out and taken out of these properties who should them be given to other applicants

A register of bad private landlords is a good idea but we also need a register of bad Council and Housing Association landlords. Some Housing Associations have openly said that they're no longer interested in social tenants. They want to become commercial property landlords. My housing association sold a flat last year for around £1,000,000. Yes. a million pounds. A Housing Association. perhaps that's what they mean by affordable housing.

A Commissioner for Social Housing Residents !

Will he or she know what its like to live in social housing ?
Will this commissioner be approachable by local residents?
Or will it be another person paid by us that we cant contact
that makes decisions about us, for us, without talking to us?

Will he or she have any knowledge about planning and
building regulations or will this an in name only appointment?

Will this commissioner tell architects building regulations
are a MINIMUM standard not one to aim for or that BS8300
must be followed as a minimum not a maximum standard?
The London plan is no longer available in a printed
format in my home town so any changes are not seen by many.

I don't think the commissioner will be aware or even know
what I'm talking about.

So how can we believe a commissioner will help us locals,
or will have the knowledge to stand up for us?

We do not want or need shoebox affordable homes
to purchase we need social / council housing for families.
We need homes for children to grow up in not
the shoddy low quality buildings being built today.

We Need homes where children and adults can play / talk
in there home without next door hearing every word said.
We need homes for single people many will never find a
home they can afford in our capital or out regions.

If we are to have happy communities we must have
homes that have good sound proofing , a place to play,
not where children need to cross a main road to get to a park.

We must stop this low quality high priced property building,
at the expense of the local residents.
We need to look at empty property including offices left for
years empty and being vandalised.

If planning changes were put in place to make it easy to convert empty offices
that after a given time should then become housing a lot of built to rot offices
could be rapidly made into homes to rent.

We also need to stop the land banking by big business that stops homes being built.

Social Housing Residents do need representation as currently Housing Associations are a law upon themselves. You only have to look at how the residents of Grenfell were treated by their local housing landlord. That treatment is only the tip of the iceberg. There is no real arbiter for social housing residents, especially those who are vulnerable. In my opinion, senior management of London HAs consider themselves to be extensions of high finance, developers and overseas investors - and have all but distanced themselves from the founding principles of local housing need. Just the ratio of tiny flats that have been developed compared to actual housing need is shocking. And that they are advertised overseas is galling. Ultimately, this initiative by the Mayor is too little too late, but that is the nature of short term politics. If it does come about, it will or should, make a small difference to the trust and confidence of those in Social Housing.

Deptford is getting a hammering from over-priced development, but when this is aided by the decisions of its labour run council and involves the destruction of social housing and green space including long established gardens and mature trees it is completely unacceptable. This is certainly the case with the recently passed Tidemill Development where councillors served the wishes of the developer even when the people they were elected to represent had come up with a viable alternative proposal that saved all of the trees and gave the same number of 'units'. It also did not involve the destruction of existing social housing.

One of my long-term concerns is about the quality of social housing.
In my own experience having lived in social housing since my childhood in Brent
it has been consistently poor.
As a result, I suffer from depression and have serious problems with my emotions as a consequence of living in poor quality housing.
Little or no interest is shown by the local council let alone the housing association from whom I rent my flat.
It is damp and infested by moths and flies and combined with a complete lack of sound insulation
this flat is a veritable torture chamber rather than a home and I feel very very annoyed and nothing is being done to address these issues by the authorities.
People want action and not words alone.

The problem with social housing is the cost of say renting . i.e. take a single person renting a studio flat or a one bedroom flat in London
Cost of renting - say: £100 - £120 per week = £400 - £480 added council tax + then add domestic bills, electricity, gas, water rates, TV licence, Internet broadband or wifi, landline phone , smartphone, bank overdraft, loan/s or credit card/s =debts, food and drink, clothing, travel, daily expense allowance - for those with a car - car loan, motor insurance etc -- total of which has got to be calculated weekly/monthly wage or salary - which then makes social housing expensive. Especially in London where 70% of Londoners put aside their earnings towards all of the above..It makes social housing very expensive ..Another example someone who rented a studio flat from the council 24 years ago paying just £38 weekly rent ..will now be paying £140-£150 a week in 2017 and by 2025 that would have gone up to £200 a week and the council tax goes up with inflation ....its between £900-£1100 a month excluding all the other domestic bills as stated above. and for a couple renting 2-3-4-5 bedroom house from social housing with kids the renting cost, council tax and other bills are much higher . The govt could considering implementing a life time rental cost which a tenant enters into a scheme and rent is deducted towards buying their social housing unit as part of the deal once a tenant has been renting say from 5 years after a qualifying period - and will only own the property 100% once a tenant has paid up to purchase the property and a clause to ensure a tenant is not allowed to sell up until after 5 years of purchasing the property at a subsided cost with the help of the social housing scheme funded by the govt etc - would be an ideal scheme and helping those who are vulnerable in our society to become home owners. I am just speaking out loud here - just a thought ?