A lot of individuals are curious about dwarf hamsters, particularly the robo dwarf hamsters- no it is not a robot – but what precisely are they? If only there were a policy answer which could put into reverse the escalation of private sector housing advantage (up by much more than half in actual terms because 2008), add huge numbers of residences to the housing stock at rents which neither add to stress on the welfare price range for low-earnings households or which don’t take a completely unreasonable chunk out of the earnings of folks who are operating hard, but with no the revenue or capital to access house ownership, for now.

Low-revenue households in this scenario are forced to make painful tradeoffs amongst housing and other basic necessities of life amongst households in the bottom expenditure quartile, those with serious housing cost burdens invest 40 % significantly less on food, 70 percent significantly less on healthcare, and 49 percent less on retirement savings every single month (Figure 1).

Presumably, a relevant housing offence will also include landlords who have been convicted of unlawfully evict their tenants, but it will be fascinating to see if it also extends to housing offences under the Housing Act 2004, e.g. letting accommodation with out a licence or failing to comply with an improvement notice, or even if it extends to landlords who have been identified to have breached housing legislation that does not attract a criminal sanction.

HUD published a proposed rule, Narrowing the Digital Divide Through Installation of Broadband Infrastructure in HUD-Funded New Construction and Substantial Rehabilitation of Multifamily Rental Housing that would call for owners and developers of HUD-funded multifamily housing to set up broadband infrastructure at the time of construction or if the house undergoes substantial rehabilitation.

In such a climate, it as a result appears unlikely that housing associations will voluntarily minimize their rents and will alternatively look for more tenants who are capable to pay the rent with no housing benefit which means that some households are priced out of social housing and forced to move into significantly less secure private sector accommodation.