Action For Housing Calls For Pensioner Flats Review

Action for Housing has welcomed the allocation of the 44 pensioner flats at Queen Elizabeth II Memorial Mews, but says the eligibility criteria should be reviewed.

A statement from Action for Housing follow below:

Action for Housing very much welcome the allocation of the 44 pensioners' flats at Queen Elizabeth II Memorial Mews, Chatham Views Estate. These well-built flats will make a real difference to the lives of the senior citizens moving in.

We do, however, want to raise one observation. All 44 flats have been allocated exclusively to applicants who released their government rental homes in return. To an extent this makes sense: government recovers 44 flats which can then be reallocated to others on the waiting list.

But it also raises a fair question. Is it right that pensioners' flats are offered only to those releasing government housing, to the exclusion of pensioners in the private sector? Some private-sector applicants, because of their age, medical condition, or genuinely poor housing conditions, would have qualified for a pensioner’s flat had they been government tenants. They were not, and so they were excluded.

That question deserves an answer, and how each of us answers it says something about where we draw the line between expediency and fairness.