Housing associations in England manage over 2.5 million homes and between 2011-2015 built over 170,000 new affordable homes. They built around 46,000 affordable homes in 2014/15, representing 37% of all homes built that year. Recent cuts and reforms pose challenges to the housing sector, including a 1% annual rent reduction until 2021 estimated to cost £1.6 billion. The report recommends tackling poverty, promoting healthy childhood development, increasing public influence over resources, and strengthening the health sector's role in promoting equity to improve health in northern England.

1. Creating Healthy Places in the North East: The
Role of Housing
Patrick Vernon OBE
Health Partnership Coordinator

2. Impact of Housing Associations
Housing associations
manage two and a half
million homes for more than
five million people in
England.
Between 2011 and 2015,
we built over 170,000 new
affordable homes,
generating almost £18.4
billion in the economy and
supporting over 390,000
jobs.

3. • In 2014/15, housing associations are estimated to have
built around 46,000 affordable homes in England – this
equates to around 37% of all homes that year;
• Housing associations also build homes for market rent
and market sale – a modest estimate indicates this will
exceeded 3,500 in 2014/15 – meaning total housing
association delivery is estimated to have been around
50,000 new homes in 2014/15;
• Over the course of the last parliament, almost one in
three of all new homes built were affordable homes
delivered by housing associations.

4. North East
104 Housing Associations
(80 Federation members)
132,883 General Needs
19,796 Older People
5,989 Supported
3,075 LCHO

5. Due North: Report of the Inquiry
on Health Equity for the North
The report identifies four areas of
concern based the evidence
submitted and inquiry lines of inquiry:
• Tackle poverty and economic
inequality
• Promote healthy development in
childhood
• Share power of resources and
increase the influence of the
public
• Strengthen the role of the public
sector

6. Prevention is better than treatment:
Public service reform and economic
Development
Involve a long-term plan to transform how the £136
billion of public money
that is spent in the North each year is used to
promote the well-being and capabilities of people
in the North.

7. But over the long term, investing
public resources in the development of people
(e.g. in their education, skills and health) and
places (e.g. in good housing and infrastructure)
will be a more effective and efficient use of
resources, promoting prosperity and reducing
inequalities in the future are therefore interlinked.

8. Better public services that focus on developing people
and places and preventing poverty result in a healthier,
more skilled population which in turn helps to make the
region prosperous, increasing the public resources
available through taxation that can be invested in public
services.

9. Recommendations
1: Tackle poverty and economic inequality within
the North and between the North and the rest of
England
2: Promote healthy development in early childhood
3: Share power over resources and increase the
influence that the public has on how resources are
used to improve the determinants of health
4: Strengthen the role of the health sector in
promoting health equity

11. Challenges Housing Sector
• 1% Rent reduction over
the next four years
• Welfare Reform
• Exemption for Supported
Housing??
• Extension of The Right
To Buy
• Start Homes and Section
106
• National Living Wage

12. • Further cuts and
reductions in social care
budgets
• Mergers
• Role of housing
association in community
social investment and
regeneration schemes
• Valued partner in
devolution agenda

13. Inside Housing Survey
135 CEOs response to Rent reduction
estimated £1.6 billion by 2021
• 72.1% Cutting back on
non-core activity
• 58.9% Redundancies,
with 51.9% freezing
recruitment
• 53.5% Sharing costs
• 34.9% Building more
homes for market rent
• 34.1% Looking for merger

14. System Leadership
• Care Act
• NHS England Five Year
Forward View
• CSR
• NHS England and PHE
Health Town Programme
• MOU between health and
housing sector
• Devolution Agenda
• One Public Estate

15. Challenges
• Single Voice and Point of
access
• Evidence Base
• Making the Business
Case
• Language and
communication with the
NHS

16. • Getting the right people in
the room
• Housing can contribute to
all dimensions of
devolution agenda and
not ‘a one trick pony’
• Retreat to our caves and
silos due to cuts and
efficiency savings

17. Federation as a Strategic Partner
PHE/NHS England & DH
Role in developing better
dialogue between health
and housing sector
• Sharing good practice
• Briefings
• Policy development
• Influencing/Advocacy
• Networking opportunities
• Events and seminars

18. Housing Offer
• System Leadership and
Transformational Change
• Health & Care Priorities
and Planning
• Information
Sharing/Research
• Models of Care
• Workforce Development
• Integration
• NHS Land & Estates

19. Case Studies
• Thirteen Group
Middlesbrough- Recovering
Together project
• Gentoo - Boilers on
Prescription
• Home Group - Social
Prescribing
• Tyne- Working with Homeless
• Northstar -Mental Health

20. patrick.vernon@housing.org.uk
020 7067 1040
http://www.housing.org.uk/topics/health-
care-and-housing/