Panorama; Council Housing.

tori.k

I've just watched this on the iplayer and a much as i disliked the guy buying the tenancy he did have a vaild point they should investigate how the council house people, my sister rented her own private house when she moved in with her boyfriend to a woman who claimed full housing benefit that the council paid her to pay my sister after 2 months she stopped paying the rent after another couple of months they had to start the eviction process and even tho the council were informed that she wasn't paying the rent they still continued paying the tennent it, 6 months in all its taken both the council ( tax payer)and my sister are 3k out of pocket, and the tennent has just picked up the keys to a brand new housing association house because she was classed as homeless...makes me sick

boo1

tori.k wrote: »

I've just watched this on the iplayer and a much as i disliked the guy buying the tenancy he did have a vaild point they should investigate how the council house people, my sister rented her own private house when she moved in with her boyfriend to a woman who claimed full housing benefit that the council paid her to pay my sister after 2 months she stopped paying the rent after another couple of months they had to start the eviction process and even tho the council were informed that she wasn't paying the rent they still continued paying the tennent it, 6 months in all its taken both the council ( tax payer)and my sister are 3k out of pocket, and the tennent has just picked up the keys to a brand new housing association house because she was classed as homeless...makes me sick

That is so wrong. I work in Housing and always thought that if you lose your home through non payment of rent then you are intentionally homeless, that's how it is with our local Council. She must have told them some story :mad:. It gives totally the wrong impression, don't pay your rent and lose your home but don't worry you can have a new one!!!

What annoys me, as other posters have also said, is the fact that when people are housed the property that is allocated is the right size. Then they have kid after kid and come in moaning because they have a 2 bed flat and need a 4 bed house. A lot of them think that because they are overcrowded or kids of opposite sex are sharing a room then they should be moved. Of course in an ideal world that would be marvellous but there is limited stock these days. If I had a pound for every person I saw demanding that then I could give up work! :rotfl:

And while I think about it it's always the ones that shout loudest or go to the press that seem to get somewhere. The local authority/HA gets bad mouthed and the public never know the full story and of course we can never give the full picture.... A lot of tenants patiently bide their time and don't make a fuss and they won't get anywhere, and a lot of them are deserving of a move. You tell them to go and get GP letter for their illness, reports from teachers etc if children are suffering and they are loathe to do it. You have to tell them points make houses and they need to get as high up the list as they can so that they are in with a chance. Even if it is a slim one.

Oh, and it is amazing that a lot of tenants don't work, claim benefits and have a house full of gadgets and decent TV's and drive cars that are newer than mine. Don't get me started, I'll go on and on and on like a cracked record.

I'm getting off my soapbox now and going to bed!!!

dkmax_2

Running_Horse wrote: »

Where would you then house the unemployed?

Afghanistan and Iraq.

paper-hearts_3

Just watched this on bbci player.

Got half way through it and my partner walked in, asked how old the two lads sleeping on the couch were, and asked why they didnt work and support themselves as they look more than old enough to do so.

My partner had 2 jobs at 17, because he always knew he wanted to own his own house, he got the 2 jobs, and saved for a few years until he bought his first house at 21 years old.

Some people these days expect everything handed to them for nothing.

What i dont understand is instead of claiming benefits why cant they go out and earn a living for their kids.

The pregnant woman in the show who was crying about wanting a nice house? my first thought when they mentioned her 21 year old boyfriend was why is he unemployed?

Im not being judgmental, Im just curious about these things.

missusd

ViolaLass wrote: »

While I understand why you want to go on the holiday (both financial and emotional reasons), there is an argument that you should have saved an emergency fund before spending money on non-essentials so that when something went wrong, you would have money spare to deal with it. Why should the council foot the bill because you decided a holiday was more important than having savings?

Hi there,

I understand your point fully..because we always do..however that disappeared 5 months ago when in the space of 4 weeks our washer, dryer and fridge freezer broke...all typically just out of warranty.
Then a nice lady hit our car and drove off...police couldn't find her and we were left to foot the bill for the repairs.

We certainly don't expect the council to rehome us...we merely went to them for housing advice and to know that if we need to leave quick (there are other factors too) then we have a back up plan.

IF we did get a council house it would not be a long term home. We intended to save for a deposit to by in a more country setting..but we were aiming to do this after my degree is paid for. ( I also study part time from home and have to pay for the degree).

If we have the time on our side we will save again after the holiday for a deposit on another private rented.
But after paying into the tax system for so long I can't see why I shouldn't be entitled to short term housing help.

Thanks again for replying.

emiai

jackieb wrote: »

If the shoe was on your foot, and you were happily settled in a house you had lived in, and looked after, for many years, would you choose to leave and live in a smaller house, and pay more for the privilege? What if you lived near neighbours you had got on well with for years, and you all took a pride in your home - you have to leave just because your children had moved out, and in moves a tenant who doesn't work and doesn't care about cutting the grass, or being a good neighbour. The same happens to your neighbours once their children leave, and they are replaced with more tenants that no-one wants to live next door to. Some tenants might not think it's worth keeping their properties nice because no-one else does, and your once very nice council estate ends up as some kind of ghetto! The council needs good tenants. If people get moved around frequently, then they get no sense of belonging or community, and no pride in where they live. It's a shame.

Exactly right. That is why people stay. However there are still people living in houses too big for their needs. The price of private rent is so high and much less secure than social housing. Is this the main problem?

Orpheo

beckythemadcow wrote: »

Workhouses.

You should read better sources before voting for the workhouse and re-opening that can of worms. Start with the 1601 Act for the Relief of the Poor and the 1834 Poor Law Ammendment Act. Read about how, in spite of acts of reform in the 20's and the NHS act, the institutions remained (they were given nicer names though) up until the 1960s when single mothers were institutionalised and the institutions were used as a place to dispose of the elderly.

The workhouse was a way of dealing with (disappearing) the poor, not tackling poverty or unemployment.

"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.
"Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
"And the Union workhouses?" demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?"
"They are. Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish I could say they were not."
"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?" said Scrooge.
"Both very busy, sir."
"Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course," said Scrooge. "I'm very glad to hear it."
"Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude," returned the gentleman, "a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?"
"Nothing!" Scrooge replied. "You wish to be anonymous?"
"I wish to be left alone," said Scrooge. "Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there."
"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."
"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."
Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentlemen withdrew.
Scrooge resumed his labours with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual with him.

Welshwoofs

I watched the program and found myself shouting at the television. My thoughts about it can really be summed up as follows:

1. Don't have kids if you can't afford to provide for them. It doesn't take a genius to work out that if you live in a 3-bed house and you keep popping out rug rats, then sooner or later you'll have an over-crowding problem. It also doesn't take a genius to work out that if you don't work, you won't have the money to provide for those kids.

2. If you are a healthy young lad of 19/21 and you happen to be unlucky enough to be in an area of high unemployment, guess what, you can MOVE. You have no ties so you can start job hunting nationally and when you find one, then rent a room in a house share. DON'T sit around on your fat backside moaning that you can't have your own free house because, guess what, the world doesn't owe you a bloody living.

3. If you're a young couple who have no work, then try C.O.N.T.R.A.C.E.P.T.I.O.N. The #1 requirement of parenthood is being responsible for the provision of what that child needs......don't have children and expect the taxpayer to pick up the bill.

4. If you're unemployed and pregnant and in a perfectly good rented flat, try to avoid blowing all your money on nick-naks, new furniture and exercise bikes on the catalogue never-never because you'll end up in something we call D.E.B.T. When you get into debt, don't then whinge and moan that you can't afford your rent....you CREATED that situation! When you move into your first house together...do what the rest of us did, second-hand shops and family hand-me-downs. Nobody NEEDS to have brand new everything!

dizziblonde

What is there out there if you're a decent couple, who work (and believe me - with how my income is these days I'd be better off on benefits) and who don't have kids... nothing. I didn't even bother looking into council housing when I was finding somewhere to leave home to - because there's nothing for people like me, it's all taken over by people who don't want to work and want to churn out kids as leverage to demand their rights. Yet they get a house they can do with what they will, can keep pets, get security of tenure and repairs actually done... and, well you've seen what lots of private rented people have to go through.

I've got a cousin - never worked a day in her life, plays every loophole in the benefits system known to man (indeed they finally caught up to her for benefit fraud about her fella living with her fairly recently), regards cable TV as more important than paying her rent, and I've seen her repeatedly make the same mistakes and be bailed out at baliffs at the door time (because she manouvered her dad into putting her into care with an 18 month campaign of terror involving letting her mates trash and burgle his house, false rape allegations etc etc as some other friends had tipped her off about how much of an easy number she would have in terms of no longer being expected to go to school and the like) with nicely refurbed flat after flat, and when she got sick of the stairs and being on the top floor - oh look - I'm pregnant and lots of holding forth on the sofa about how "the council have to give me a house and they haven't got the keys to me yet and that's not fair." Her mother moved away when she was a baby - took her with her in order to secure council housing and then sent her back up north to dump her on her father - the entire side of the family has this skewed sense of how the world works.

What's happened to priorities? What's happened to making sure you're relatively financially stable with a roof over your head BEFORE you do the baby thing? (and yes it blooming backfired in my case as I then found out I couldn't carry a child to term but I don't regret not desperately getting up the duff age 18 to make sure I'd done it) What the hell's happened to the earthshattering idea that you pay for the roof over your head before you start frittering away cash on holidays, nights out, posh TV and the like? (and yes that's a dig at the poster who thinks that the holiday comes before having somewhere to live) Since when did 2 weeks on a beach become a fundamental right?! We have a big TV - we got a large amount of cash as a wedding present from OH's parents (basically the equivalent to what they spent on his sister's massively OTT wedding), the one indulgence we made with it was to replace our TV... the rest formed the deposit for our house - any other electronic gadgets (my addiction) - they get bought when we've got a spare glut of cash in the bank account (the nature of my income is erratic, but good when it's coming in - so it buys the luxuries, and we make sure hubby's covers the essentials).

It makes me incredibly angry - I'd be better off on the dole, I just refuse to do so out of pride (I got through 3 months of no work refusing to sign on last year even though I'd be entitled to) - I was brought up to pay my own way and not expect the world to owe me a living.

EmRayMarRhys

I didn't watch, but I'd like to put across another situation if I may.
We (both me and my husband) both used to work. We are now unable to due to having three disabled children (disabilities not apparent until toddlerhood). We NEED our housing association property. We're currently waiting for a larger one as the two bedroomed property we currently have is not suitable for their medical needs. However we completely understand stock shortages and we know we have to wait.

We didn't expect everything to be handed to us on a plate, but we're grateful that the safety net exists. I'm sure we're not the only ones in this kind of situation.

Oh yes and we do have a flat screen tv, my brother was getting rid of his and we got it free