Housing associations are seeing tenants move from exclusion to real poverty
This article tells us – Many of the 2 million adults in the UK without a bank account are in a financially precarious situation, often lacking savings and reliant on short-term loans. But the introduction of universal credit, which will require welfare recipients to have a bank account into which benefits can be paid, has given the problem of financial exclusion a new urgency. It’s an issue of particular concern to housing associations, where an estimated 13% of residents don’t have bank accounts. Most housing associations now have teams of financial inclusion officers, tasked with supporting residents who are financially vulnerable. Matt Earnshaw, group financial inclusion manager at Circle Housing, says that some residents are “only one incident away potentially from being tipped over the edge. They might lose their job, they might go off work sick, they might have a family breakdown, and that can be the point at which problems start to occur”.
Tackling financial exclusion effectively requires a broad range of preventative measures, including encouraging residents to join credit unions. Liverpool Housing Trust, for example, has just invested £50,000 in two credit unions and wants its own staff to join them, enabling the unions to offer as many loans as possible. In south Wales, many housing associations have adopted Moneyline, which offers affordable loans to people on low incomes, as well as basic bank and savings accounts.
Housing associations can also minimise tenants’ outgoings by helping them shop online to find the cheapest energy supplier or, in the case of Golden Gates Housing Trust, introducing solar panels to 1,500 properties to reduce energy costs.
The work can be challenging, however. In rural areas and the south Wales valleys, many bank and post office branches have closed, making it physically difficult for residents to gain access to a bank account, says Langley. Libraries where residents might use computers to access online accounts have also closed down. Some Welsh housing associations have responded by lending residents tablet computers to access the internet. Digital inclusion and financial inclusion are so closely linked.
Lack of broadband and dispersed groups of individuals makes this a more acute issue in rural communities than many people might suppose!