GLASGOW SAVE OUR HOMES CAMPAIGN SECOND STAGE TRANSFER AND THE FREE MARKET A SHORT BRIEFING PAPER

Second Stage Transfer (SST*) has been trumpeted as Community Ownership which would be the means to deliver decent social housing in Glasgow. In addition we are in formed that all Glasgow Tenants want SST to deliver us from the evils of the Glasgow Housing association Ltd (GHA Ltd). It is utter humbug. Second Stage Transfer (SST) is NOT Community Ownership as any Local Housing Organisations that would take over ownership of housing stock have Codes of Conduct that Tenant Members of their Board have to sign which prevents them from talking to any other tenants about the business of the new landlord: so much for Community Ownership. In addition with Local Housing Organisations(LHOs**) taking over stock there would be amalgamations, mergers and outright takeovers by predatory Housing Associations such as Sanctuary, Homes or Places for People. These three English based Housing Associations have 129,000 properties between them charging market rents south of the border.

Second Stage Transfer would be nothing more than generating a Free Market in Social Housing which would result in accelerating Demolitions with land sell offs for Private Housing developments as the Private Banking Consortium of HBOS,RBS and Nationwide would be at the heart of driving this process forward. Secondly at the current time GHA Ltd is carrying out a Rent Restructuring Review stating that it favours differentiating rents. This process would be accelerated with the further break-up of Housing Stock with differentiating Market Rents being charged to the detriment of tenants. This is especially the case with new labour’s plans to replace Housing benefit with a Local Housing Allowance.

GHA Ltd recently carried out a survey of tenants and only 5% understood what SST* was. In addition Penilee LHO** carried out a Private Survey of its 2,000 Tenants which revealed that the majority of tenants did NOT support SST. Real Community Ownership requires that GHA ltd Housing is brought back under the ownership of Glasgow City Council with Tenants being offered the opportunity to take over the Management of Housing stock in their local area through the form of Tenant management Cooperatives (TMCs)where tenants are in genuine control and are protected from predatory Free Market Forces with the protective umbrella of Glasgow City Council.

The Glasgow Save Our Homes campaign and Glasgow Residents Network will oppose SST in 2007 and we look forward to support from the Scottish Tenants Organisation (STO) in line with its principled policy of opposing Stock Transfer. It is vital that any Conference on Scottish Housing must support genuine Community ownership through housing being returned to Glasgow City Council and oppose SST at all times. ~ Tel: 07976718111 ~