Austerity drive to mean council homes swaps?

Graham_Devon

http://news.aol.co.uk/austerity-drive-to-mean-home-swaps/article/20100728043209990001?icid=main|uk|dl1|link3|http%3A%2F%2Fnews.aol.co.uk%2Fausterity-drive-to-mean-home-swaps%2Farticle%2F20100728043209990001

A total of 234,000 households in the social tenant sector are overcrowded while 456,000 are under-occupied, meaning people have more than one extra spare room, according to official figures.

Seems perfectly fair to me, and one way of reducing overcrowding without having to build more homes.

Will get the backs up of some though I'm sure.

chucky

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Seems perfectly fair to me, and one way of reducing overcrowding without having to build more homes.

as all things the location of these properties is the most important.

also, being realistic. if you have spare room in a property would you want to lose that spare space (if you could afford it of course).
i wouldn't.

it's not a clear cut solution as it looks

Raggs_2

Read it properly, this is homes with more than 1 spare room! Not just a spare room, several.

chucky

Raggs wrote: »

Read it properly, this is homes with more than 1 spare room! Not just a spare room, several.

same principle - one spare room or more than one spare room.

if you're comfortable why would you want to move to a smaller place.

Raggs_2

Dunno why you'd want to, but if the house isn't yours, and you aren't paying for it, then you shouldn't have much of a choice.

You think the families in houses without enough bedrooms are comfortable?

lynzpower

There is already a swapping culture in Council Housing although it does seem rather bitty.

If the government put some money ( and I dont tihnk it would take a lot) into a decent website and service I definitely think it would work. I see ads in local papers/ gumtree and scores of other places, and I have read on here people find trying to find someone to swap with quite difficult.

I do see a number of ads where people want smaller properties ie Ill swap a 3 bed flat for a one bed, but it has to be ground floor/with a lift) usually these are elderly people or people with disabilities i guess.

chucky

Raggs wrote: »

Dunno why you'd want to, but if the house isn't yours, and you aren't paying for it, then you shouldn't have much of a choice.

You think the families in houses without enough bedrooms are comfortable?

that was my point - unless they're 'encouraged' to move to smaller property nobody is going to want to swap.

council house swaps already happen - i've no idea how they work but would think not many of them are "forced" and they're done out of choice.

Raggs_2

If it could be done well enough on a voluntary basis that would be great, but if not I think the most extreme cases (single in 3/4 bed is more outrageous than couple in 3 bed etc etc) should be forced.

JimmyTheWig

Raggs wrote: »

Dunno why you'd want to, but if the house isn't yours, and you aren't paying for it, then you shouldn't have much of a choice.

Whether they are paying for it or not, this is still someone's home we are talking about.
These are real people with real lives, real families, in many cases real children. Do you really think that it is fair to turf them out of their home? How do you expect people to get back on their feet if you keep shifting them from pillar to post?

If they want to swap (location, access, don't want the maintenance / heating of a larger property) then fine. This should be encouraged and facilitated.

lilac_lady

As usual the single person will be disadvantaged if this goes ahead.

Raggs_2

I'm not suggesting they are moved to a different county, but why should families with children be forced to stay in accommodation far too small for them, when there are others with several spare rooms?

Why is the single person disadvantaged? They have in theory been overly advantaged whilst living in a larger house.

People tend to look at this the wrong way, as opposed to thinking "Now all these folks will be disadvantaged" it should be "Now all these people will be back in the situation they should have been, after being rather well off (on the expense of the state) for a while."