Island’s only emergency housing association is full

The Sarnia Housing Association offers accommodation for people in desperate situations from three buildings. And as the island’s rental market gets tougher – evidenced by official States figures from the first quarter of the year – demand on its services has grown.

‘It has been apparent that, since the second lockdown, Guernsey is struggling to provide accommodation for all those who need it,’ said accommodation manager Jane Le Conte.

‘The reasons for this are likely to be complex and a combination of different circumstances, but there has been a higher than usual demand for SHA accommodation.’

She said that the situation had been exacerbated by Guernsey people returning to live in the island in the shadow of the pandemic, which has had an effect on private sector rents.

In addition, there is a shortage of available two-bedded accommodation in the social housing sector.

SHA tenants tend to move into the social housing sector, but this move has slowed to a virtual standstill.

‘Tenants are not moving on and so flats and houses are not falling vacant to offer to those on the waiting list,’ she said.

This is made very clear to those who phone asking for accommodation.

‘Their personal situation is explored and advice is offered.

However, the reality is that there is no other organisation which offers emergency accommodation, and private rents are often beyond the reach of those who phone the SHA.

‘These families are left in a desperate situation, where they cannot afford private rentals, even if they are available, and some do not take children,’ said Mrs Le Conte.

‘They are on the social housing waiting list, but nothing comes up and Sarnia Housing, the only emergency housing association to cover this area, is full. What can they do?’

The SHA accommodation manager speaks regularly with housing officers who work with applicants through the ‘single gateway for social housing’, which takes applications for States Housing and the Guernsey Housing Association.

There are currently six families on the SHA waiting list and applications are received all the time, including four last week.

‘At times like these, when waiting for SHA accommodation is long, applicants sometimes sort themselves out before a flat becomes available,’ Mrs Le Conte said.

‘For instance, of the first two families I offered the last vacancy to, one had found private rental accommodation and the other was leaving the island because of the situation.

‘The Guernsey Housing Association is doing an excellent job.

'Their [GHA] new developments led to us experiencing a drop in applications, and the time tenants spent with us was also reduced.

‘However, they are now limited by the land available to them and unless land is released to GHA, or other builders wanting to build affordable housing, nothing will change.

‘The release of this land, planning and the infrastructure needed to accommodate these new builds lies with the States in one way or another, and the fact that things move so slowly – if at all – means we cannot see a change in the situation in the near future.’

The Sarnia Housing Association is a charity that was set up more than 50 years ago in response to a perceived need to address the housing difficulties experienced by some in the island.

The need for the accommodation provided by SHA has varied, but never disappeared.

Today the charity runs three buildings – one provides four bedsits for single people who are long-term residents, the other two each contain seven units, a mixture of bedsits and one-bed flats, which are specifically to provide short-term emergency accommodation for families with at least one child under five years old and who have their names down on the social housing waiting list.

All buildings have a resident warden and all those involved in the work of SHA are volunteers.

GHA waiting list 'changed dramatically since June'

WAITING lists for rentals and partial ownership properties have been increasing dramatically since last June, the Guernsey Housing Association has said.

‘There has been a fundamental change in the housing market in Guernsey since the first lockdown ended in June last year,’ chief executive Steve Williams said.

‘Prior to that the social housing waiting lists for rent and partial ownership had been slowly climbing, but since last June they have increased dramatically.

‘Overall there are more people in the island, with a lot of ex-pats having moved back to the safer haven of Guernsey during this pandemic period.’

Because of this, all sectors of the housing market have been busy, including sales, private, rented and social or affordable housing. The challenge is that the supply of new homes cannot be quickly increased overnight, Mr Williams said.

‘Securing land, obtaining planning permissions and constructing new homes together takes four to five years from locating a suitable site.’

In 2018 the States approved a KPMG Report which set targets for between 146 and 209 new affordable homes to be built for the five years from 2017 to December 2021, plus any required keyworker and supported housing.

The GHA, together with funding support from the Employment & Social Security Committee, will by the end of this year have built 205 new homes, plus 22 keyworker and 10 supported housing properties, meeting the maximum of the range that was set to them.

Mr Williams explained that the housing market had changed a lot in the last year and it was difficult for the market to react quickly.

‘The single (ESS and GHA) social housing rented waiting list currently shows 184 households needing rented housing, and 111 households requiring to transfer from an existing States or GHA property to a more suitable property generally due to health or mobility reasons,’ he said.

‘We also have 180 households on our partial ownership waiting list.’

In total there are 364 applicants waiting, plus 111 existing social housing households needing to transfer to more suitable accommodation.