Housing trusts 'are doing what they should be doing'

From Ken Hewitt, chairman, Les Vaux Housing Trust.

I WAS interested to read your Saturday Interview with the new Housing Minister and his plans for the future of housing in the Island.

While agreeing with some of his comments, I am afraid that I must take issue with him regarding his remarks relating to housing trusts and, in this instance, I can only speak for Les Vaux Housing Trust, the oldest of the three main housing trusts in the Island.

Your readers may recall that the property of Troy Court, having been offered to the States of Jersey, was eventually sold to a Guernsey businessman, the States – including the Housing Committee – having voted by 40 to 8 not to approve the purchase.

Shortly thereafter, Troy Court tenants were presented with a potential increase in their rents of 70 per cent. Some five months later, in June 1989, the tenants of the 96 flats at Troy Court were given notice of their forthcoming evictions.

The solution to the Troy Court dilemma was proposed by the late Deputy John N Le Fondré, who suggested that a housing association be created and, as a result, Les Vaux Housing Trust was formed and purchased Troy Court with a loan from the States, which incidentally will be repaid within the next two years.

Tenants at other properties, such as Valley Court, Landscape Grove and Perquage Court, were faced with similar problems and were rescued by bringing them into the Les Vaux portfolio.

Since that time the properties have been refurbished and regularly maintained to a good standard for Social Housing, and rents have been kept within the agreed ceiling laid down by the Housing Department.

Regular site visits and meetings with the tenants’ representatives of all our properties are undertaken by the seven honorary trustees, as well as visits from our independent managing agents.

The new housing Minister stated that we do not do what we should be doing. I think the foregoing shows that we are doing precisely what we should be doing and that is seeing that the less fortunate of the Island are suitably housed at an affordable rent.

We now have 335 units of accommodation, not counting two properties which are let to Les Amis, one of which we fitted out specifically for a severely handicapped young man.

Which brings me to his specific points of able-bodied people living in disabled access flats and the refusal of tenants with bad credit records or on release from prison.

As the majority of our stock is old property, we only have three disabled access units, apart from those just mentioned, all of which are rented to people with a disability and as a matter of interest, two of them were offered to and nominated by the Housing Department as we had no disabled people on our waiting list at that time.

It is our standard practice to do a credit reference on all new tenants, but only when they are offered and have accepted accommodation. Depending on the judgements they have and if they are honest with us, we will normally take the tenants on.

In our history we have only declined two or three applicants and that was where they did not disclose their judgments on the application form and where these were in excess of 20 or so, some of which were for rent arrears. We have taken tenants on the past who had been refused by the housing department.

I can also confirm that we have never declined anyone because they have been in prison and in fact some 18 months ago, following a meeting with the relevant prison officer, a young person was granted a tenancy on release from prison.

Finally, I agree with him and would welcome the regulation of all the providers of social housing – ie, housing trusts, the Housing Department and social housing landlords for profit – provided that the regulator was totally independent.

Since I was appointed chairman in 2000 I have kept a low profile and not responded to various adverse comments made about housing trusts. But in this instance, I and my fellow trustees felt that we should take this opportunity to show that we do ‘do what we should be doing’.

During that time I have enjoyed a good working relationship with Senator Terry Le Main and the officers of the Housing Department, and I look forward to that relationship continuing under Deputy Power.