Michael Gove is to cut £1m of funding to the Rochdale housing association where two-year-old Awaab Ishak died from prolonged exposure to black mould, saying failing providers would not get funding future
The equalization secretary said Rochdale Boroughwide Housing would get no more government funding from the Affordable Housing Scheme or receive new contracts. Gove has been highly critical of the association, whose boss refused to resign until he was sacked five days after the coroner’s report.
Gove has pledged to also block new funding to other housing providers who run into failed tenants and awarded £14m to enforcement teams to inspect private landlords.
“RBH failed its tenants, so it won’t get a penny of extra taxpayers’ money for new housing until it acts and makes it right for tenants,” Gove said.
“Let this be a warning to other housing providers who ignore complaints and fail to fulfill their obligations to tenants. We will not hesitate to act. Everyone deserves the right to live in a safe and decent home and this Government will always act to protect the tenants”.
Awaab Ishak died in 2020, eight days after his second birthday, as a direct result of black mold in the apartment where he lived. Her father first reported the mold to RBH in 2017. The coroner found she had died as a result of a serious illness. respiratory condition caused by prolonged exposure to mold in your home.
His father, Faisal Abdullah, was told to paint on it, which he did several times, and a health visitor also wrote, twice, to RBH in 2020, expressing concern about mold and the negative effects on to the health it could have.
On Wednesday, Gove said Homes England would be instructed to withhold £1m from Rochdale Borough Housing allocated in future AHP funding.
Gove has said he will also continue to closely monitor the housing standards of RBH tenancies to ensure tenants have adequate housing, and launch a wider crackdown on poor standards.
He said the government would block any housing provider that fails to meet the regulator’s consumer standards from new AHP funding until it makes improvements, and would consider removing existing AHP funding from providers unless construction already has started
Gove has written to six housing providers (Clarion, Southern Housing Group, Onward Homes, Catalyst Housing, PA Housing and Johnnie Johnson Housing) who have had recent findings of serious maladministration against them by the housing ombudsman ‘England due to various problems related to cold and humidity. , mould, leaks and anti-social behaviour.
But on Wednesday he said he accepted the problem was not just a problem in the social housing sector and said £14m would be allocated for enforcement in the private rented sector.
Areas receiving the extra enforcement cash to increase the use of fines where a landlord is found to have committed an offense include £2.3m for Greater Manchester, including Rochdale and surrounding councils.
Speaking to MPs on Tuesday, the housing secretary told MPs that too many landlords had shown “defensive behaviour” when receiving complaints about poor conditions at their properties, but also admitted the extent of the dangerous conditions was so big that more funding might be needed to fix the problem. .
Housing Secretary Lisa Nandy said the government needed to go further in regulation, not just enforcement. “After years of broken promises, the government has taken no action to strengthen the rules to protect these families. There is a political consensus on this, so there is no excuse for further delay,” he said.
“The rules need to be enforced to protect tenants, but they also need to be strengthened. We could get a decent housing standard and stronger protections for tenants on the statute book today if the government was willing to do so. It would be unconscionable to wait until a child dies in a private rented property before acting.”