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Why is it the word ‘AFFORDABLE’ seems to be popping up all over the place?
There's 'affordable cars', 'affordable holidays', 'affordable repairs', 'affordable sofas', and, clearly the most overused of all, 'affordable housing'.
Those in the business of offering services or selling goods seem to be endeavoring to catch the eyes of us all by advertising that what they are selling or offering to supply is actually 'affordable'. But for whom, and how on earth can these sellers possibly know what they are offering is indeed within the affordability range of their potential clients or customers?
What does this word 'affordable' really mean? A well-known online dictionary states:
"If something is affordable, it's priced reasonably, and you have enough money to buy it... The adjective affordable can either mean 'cheap', or it can imply that even if it's expensive, you have enough money to easily buy it."
...Or, in the case of housing, one presumes to afford to rent or buy!
Pictured: "...Why on earth do we still use the phrase affordable housing?"
Helpfully, Statistics Jersey publishes evidence of the cost of living in Jersey regularly and others, such as the Consumer Council, for example, analyse the figures and share their thoughts and expertise with us, the consumers.
We all know the reality of how much we can afford individually or within our household when it comes to paying for stuff and indeed what is affordable and what is not – just look at your income and expenditure for last month.
The silliest use of the word must be when it is attached to housing, the single biggest expense for us all as proven time and time again, so why on earth do we still use the term 'affordable housing' at all? It is not for many, many islanders, which is why we have a housing crisis.
And please can we also stop saying that it's all about 'supply'? This is not true! Yes, we need more homes, but the way we set how much they should be let for in the social rental sector or indeed sold via Andium is in the hands of the Government. They are the only organisation with the power to do so.
Finally, can someone please explain how setting rents in the social rental sector based on a percentage of the so-called 'market rate' bears any resemblance to reality whatsoever?
This was highlighted by what the Housing Minister said in answer to a question in the States Assembly very recently about how much should a landlord set as the rental price for a one-bed flat. The answer from Deputy Warr seemed to be, well, whatever the landlord can achieve because that's how the market works! So, taking this answer surely means that we do not actually have any idea what the benchmark is for setting rents as using a percentage based on whatever the market determines is virtually impossible? The power lies with the landlord as the Government is unwilling to intervene.
Pictured: Housing Minister David Warr.
To his credit, though, Mr Warr in answer to a supplementary question did admit that any household spending more than a third of the households income on rent would be in financial stress. Surely, on that basis, rents should be set based on a third of the household's income rather than a random percentage, thus alleviating the need for the tenant to claim the housing component of Income Support and saving us, the taxpayers, from supplementing the income of the landlord?
Alas, I am in no doubt my hope to see removed forever the overuse of the word 'affordable' is doomed to fail. I can only hope and pray that one day we can recognise the risk of applying such a word is that it discriminates against all those for whom affordability is a daily battle particularly when the cost of living is so very high here in Jersey.
Perhaps only when we have a leadership that sees as its priority number one as 'governing for the common good' will we begin to see the inequalities that exist diminish, and those things we all really need are financially available for everyone.
