Funding your housing services

The Covid-19 pandemic has been hard for everyone. While we are so proud of how our communities have supported each other, we know that many have lost their jobs or had their hours reduced and that families are struggling to manage.

Some tenants and some of the businesses and organisations that rent other properties from us have been struggling to pay their rent, and some have stopped trading.

We expect to lose an estimated £5 million this year in rent and charges because of the pandemic, and that we will need to find another £4.9 million next year to keep your housing services running as they are. We expect that the coming years will be tough financially too.

We have asked the government for help but so far they haven’t offered any funding.

Share your views

Officers from your housing services have been there on the front line to keep you safe and well throughout the pandemic. We want to keep it that way. I will be taking a report to the Council’s Cabinet in January to recommend that we do this by increasing rents and charges from April 2021.

Please note that we propose keeping average weekly increases to rent and charges under £2 and that if you receive universal credit or housing benefit, your benefit will be adjusted to pay for any increase.

You can read more about our financial challenge, the proposals for increasing rents and charges and the help available for tenants in the leaflet which you can download below.

Download leaflet

Although this is not a formal consultation, you know your housing services best and we’d like to hear about any ideas you have for how we can make savings or be more efficient. Your views and ideas will feed into the report I will take to Cabinet in January. Cabinet will consider the report and make a decision about whether to increase rents and by how much.

If you have any comments about the proposed rent increase or ideas for where we could make savings locally please let us know at camden.gov.uk/housing-funding by Monday 4 January 2021.

Thank you in advance for sharing your views.

Cllr Meric Apak

Cabinet Member for Better Homes