A YouGov survey revealed recently that nationally there are 835,000 households in arrears with rent or mortgage. This compares with 405,000 in October, 2009. The unemployment rate for the three months to October was 7.9 per cent, up 0.1 per cent on the quarter.

As chair (unpaid) of local Tuke Housing Association for 13 years and a voluntary management committee member for a further seven years, I have first-hand experience of the pressures faced by social landlords as they struggle to meet their charitable objectives at the same time as balance the books. At Tuke, we resisted the previous government’s policy of rent restructuring to hold our rents at an affordable level. Consequently, we have very low arrears, a win-win that benefits our tenants as well as the balance sheet. This has allowed us to continue investing in bricks and mortar at the same time as pump priming innovative projects such as the Scarcroft Project for 15 to 19-year-olds.

However, the Government’s policies, including the cap on housing benefit from next April, will make it so much harder for associations such as Tuke to continue doing our important work and put even more tenancies at risk in 2011.

Ginnie Shaw, St Olave’s Road, Bootham, York.