The CEO of a Sheffield homelessness charity has said he doesn’t think new council plans to tax empty or secondary homes will adequately tackle the city’s homelessness problem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A recent proposal to double council tax on some empty or second homes could lead to a reduction of homelessness as the council hopes to bring homes “back into use”. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The chief executive officer of The Archer Project – a Sheffield homelessness charity – Tim Renshaw, said: The current lack of housing is due to decades of below-target housebuilding and, in particular, the decreasing stock of social housing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I’m not convinced that releasing these homes into the housing market will create a supply for homeless people, given the existing demand from people on higher incomes to enter the housing market as things stand.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The council has been granted the power to apply a “Long-Term Empty Premium” (LTEP) on to a property that is unoccupied and “substantially unfurnished” for one year – as opposed to two years as it currently stands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It has also been given the power to apply a premium on second homes of up to 100% of the council tax charge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Councillor Douglas Johnson, Chief of the Housing Committee, said: “We have a shortage of affordable housing so we also want to bring as many empty private-sector homes as possible back into use. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The council already charges increased council tax on properties that have been empty for more than two years – which increases after five years and again after 10 years. This is to encourage owners to have their properties occupied.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although Mr Renshaw said he feels deterring people from owning second homes is not enough to improve homelessness figures in the city: “Affording a home even in a market where fiscal policy is used to deter second homes remains out of the reach of many.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The scheme is set to bring in an additional \u00a31.1 million in the first year – there has not yet been any suggestions on how this money will be spent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The council could introduce the LTEP as early as April 2024, however the second home premium would not be introduced until next year. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The CEO of a Sheffield homelessness charity has said he doesn’t think new council plans to tax empty or secondary homes will adequately tackle the city’s homelessness problem. A recent proposal to double council tax on some empty or second homes could lead to a reduction of homelessness as the council hopes to bring homes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":51029,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[152,132],"tags":[135,116,12],"class_list":["post-49497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-council-2","category-top-stories","tag-sheffieldnews","tag-council","tag-sheffield"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49497"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52470,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49497\/revisions\/52470"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}