London Mayor wants to add care workers to keyworker cheaper homes list, if re-elected

Care workers could be added to London’s key worker list for housing – giving them preferential access to affordable homes, the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has said.

Sadiq Khan has said he wants to “recognise the service and sacrifice made by key workers during the coronavirus pandemic by backing them to be first in the queue” for affordable housing.

A consultation about including adult social care jobs to the keyworker list will be launched in May - if the Labour mayor wins another term in the election on 6 May.

The Mayor of London has said the bigger key worker list would become part of City Hall planning guidance for London boroughs.

Average annual cost to rent London flat: 98% of care workers' pre-tax pay

The average wage of social care staff is £8.50 an hour. The thinktank RSA published a report ‘Key Workers in the Capital’ on 19 April.

RSA highlighted that the average annual cost to rent a flat in London would take up 98 per cent of the pre-tax pay of a social care worker.

The RSA stated: ‘London’s key workers are more likely to cite ‘money worries’ and the number of ‘people at work who have become very ill or died with coronavirus’ as drivers of poor mental health, compared to the rest of GB.

‘Expensive housing and poor economic security can drive individuals out of locations, away from families, communities, and jobs.

‘Many key workers, particularly care workers, are employed on Zero Hour Contracts. Estimates vary but Skills for Care estimate that 56 per cent of adult care workers in London and just over one third (34 per cent) of the adult care workers in England are on Zero Hour Contracts.

‘While the Labour Force Survey estimates the number in the UK to be around 13 per cent. Insecure contracts can often lock individuals out of getting a mortgage and the greater housing security purchasing can bring.’

‘Care workers are the least well prepared to face housing shocks’

The RSA wants to see a wider keyworker list to include care workers, supermarket workers and delivery drivers for supermarkets, stating: ‘The Mayor of London should give priority access to the London Shared Ownership and London Living Rent schemes to these groups.

‘Supermarket and care workers are the least well prepared to face housing shocks.

‘To help support key workers in the capital, the RSA is calling on the next Mayor of London to set a wider definition of ‘key worker’ when prioritising affordable housing.’