According to affordable housing group Circle Anglia, an estimated 495,000 of the UK’s 3.9 million families in social housing want to move but are unable to do so.

Social housing tenants want to move homes for many reasons including to remain near to their families, to find a job or to live in a peaceful, less crowded area but they are faced with difficulties due to shortages of homes available for rent and increased tenant demand.

There has been a 66% fall in the availability of homes to rent to existing tenants during the past 13 years. At the same time, the overall number of social homes available has declined by 500,000 while there has been a rapid increase in demand for social housing, with one in twelve households in England on the waiting list.

The study which was carried out by the Human City Institute estimates that the lack of social housing mobility is costing the UK around £542 million a year. This cost includes £305 million lost due to tenants being unable to move to care for sick relatives, £48 million lost on welfare payments and lost tax revenue which the government would receive if tenants who wanted jobs were able to move to areas to get work. A further £32 million is lost on educational under-achievement and £58 million on the criminal justice system.

Circle Anglia is calling for the Government to introduce a national register for landlords and local authorities to make it easier for social housing tenants in one local authority to move to another.

David Williams from Circle Anglia said, “Social housing residents want to move for a number of reasons, including health, to care for sick family members, to escape overcrowding or to seek work in more prosperous areas.

“Whatever the reason, one thing is clear, it is near impossible to make the move on the transfer list, and the social and economic costs to the UK are devastating.

“With around half a million people on the social housing transfer list, if their landlords simply signed up to one national mutual exchange service we could create a fluid, free-market of house exchanges that would help so many people.”

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