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Couple with child near me, offered a 2-bed bungalow in social housing!
Comments
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lighting_up_the_chalice wrote: »Yup, just 6 weeks. It was in the deeply unfashionable North East.... Still.... A sea view!
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/31559537
That's gorgeous!
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I live in a rural, small village off the beaten track. Although it's not SH there are a few such properties about.
An elderly neighbour has recently had to give up driving and is now isolated and housebound and dependent upon others for shopping and doctors appointments.
Our teenage child now has to stay at school or college until 18 years of age and yet free bus travel is only for 16 years and under. So we will have to pay £500+ for a bus pass or take her to and from school ourselves. It's supposed to get easier as they got older NOT more restrictive!
As for the niece getting a property - in most towns and cities they will not house you until you are actually homeless due to the big difference in supply and demand. In Leeds it is customary to spend at least a few months in homeless housing before being offered SH. Not such a good prospect then is it?
Yet the lettings results for Leeds tell a very different story. Even band C (no housing need) are being offered a wide range of properties.
http://www.leedshomes.org.uk/default.aspx?menuPath=LettingsResults0 -
I live in a rural, small village off the beaten track. Although it's not SH there are a few such properties about.
An elderly neighbour has recently had to give up driving and is now isolated and housebound and dependent upon others for shopping and doctors appointments.
Our teenage child now has to stay at school or college until 18 years of age and yet free bus travel is only for 16 years and under. So we will have to pay £500+ for a bus pass or take her to and from school ourselves. It's supposed to get easier as they got older NOT more restrictive!
I would still prefer a rural area to a big city by a country mile..not MILES away from anywhere, but 3 to 4 miles to a main town? That's perfect. I would love it. Where I live - in a main town - it's full of traffic and chavs and big groups of youths. Also it takes 15 to 20 minutes to drive 3 miles some days, as the town roads are so busy!!!! I would LOVE to move out into a rural area.
The house the OP was on about (that someone they know has got,) is only 4 miles from a main town, so it would only cost four or five quid in a taxi to get there if you can't drive. If it was 30 miles away then that would be a pain, but four miles is not too bad.
What's more, they're only in their 40s, and not elderly, and there is two adults. Not sure how the 13 y.o getting to school is gonna pan out, but my daughter is 18 and is going to uni soon, so that kind of location, (rural, but still not *too* far from a main town,) is ideal
And the amount of days that we have in a year, where snow and ice would trap you at home, is very small compared to the amount we have in the year where there is no snow or ice. This past winter was exceptional.. I guess when you have lived in a big polluted town like me,, you crave the rural areas. If things did get awkward in 20 years time, like we couldn't drive: I would just move back near a town again!
Re; your elderly neighbour: my mother lived in a town and only 15 mins walk from doctors and 15 mins walk from shops, and she STILL depended on people to take her as she didn't like to go alone, and couldn't walk more than 5 minutes when she got over 70. So being in a town sometimes makes no difference unless the doctor and the shops and the bus stop are all 2 minutes walk from the door!
I have to ask you; if it's that bad where you are: why on earth don't you move???0 -
POPPYOSCAR wrote: »They why do they not buy more housing stock as there is such a great need?
Ours has...or they have built new ones. They actually built a huge new estate of houses very soon after they took over the council stock and since then, have either purchased or built new houses to keep up with the lists.
Re the OP - maybe there is an invisible disability that puts them in greater need. Looking at my boys from a distance, you wouldn't think there was anything wrong with them at all but there is and quite severe disabilities too, for example, my eldest son looks perfectly normal but he has a degenerative condition which means he will be in a wheelchair within the next 5 years.We made it! All three boys have graduated, it's been hard work but it shows there is a possibility of a chance of normal (ish) life after a diagnosis (or two) of ASD. It's not been the easiest route but I am so glad I ignored everything and everyone and did my own therapies with them.
Eldests' EDS diagnosis 4.5.10, mine 13.1.11 eekk - now having fun and games as a wheelchair user.0 -
lighting_up_the_chalice wrote: »You sign up with your local Social Housing provider. In many cases, this can be done on-line, so you don't even need to move from your computer. In doing so, you will join the other 1.8 million on the waiting list who also think Social Housing is a good thing.
Could I sign up, get a place and then rent it out?Id never question why a council gave a house to someone over someone else, unless I happened to be that someone else. Otherwise its just prying into something that has nothing to do with you, on the basis of one conversation with the people who are going to be moving in.
It may be that you're just a doormat. The OP is entitled to seek information; whether or not it is provided is another story. Don't you want to know how your taxes are being spent?And it isn't public money either!
Yes it is partially. This is the point about getting facts right.bitsandpieces wrote: »It's great to use tools like FOI to scrutinise local government. Placing this type of request just wastes their time and money, though.
In your opinion. FOI exists as part of the democratic process. You seem to like it for your uses but don't want it available to others.lighting_up_the_chalice wrote: »Pretty much, yes. Most HAs actually run at a surplus (or profit).
Pretty much but not entirely. That opens the door to public scrutiny.lighting_up_the_chalice wrote: »A very small part of the funding for a very small part of their business comes from Government grants.
I assume this 'very small part of the funding' is nonetheless a very large figure of hundreds of thousands/millions of pounds.Re the OP - maybe there is an invisible disability that puts them in greater need. Looking at my boys from a distance, you wouldn't think there was anything wrong with them at all but there is and quite severe disabilities too, for example, my eldest son looks perfectly normal but he has a degenerative condition which means he will be in a wheelchair within the next 5 years.
How many more contributors are going to guess that a hidden disability may be part of the qualifying reason?Mornië utulië0 -
Chrissie72 wrote: »Just wondered; how could this happen?
This couple are mid 40s, they have a child of 13, and have been in private let for 3.5 years since going bankrupt in late 2009.
She told me that she has been on the housing list for 5 years - 1.5 years before she and her husband went bankrupt. And last week, they were offered a bungalow from a local housing association!
I am baffled as they're not elderly or disabled. Only under occupied (the private let has 3 bedrooms,) but I think you would only get priority for under-occupying, if you're on housing benefit and her husband actually works, so they can't be. She is a stay at home mum and he works full time. The rent is only £70 a week, instead of £150 a week that their private let house is! They will have masses of surplus left. If they have been paying £150 a week, then they will be saving £80 a week!
Spare me the 'you sound jealous' and 'what's it got to do with you' lectures please
I just wonder why and how they would be offered a bungalow. It's in a very nice area too.... a village with only 450 people, 4 miles from the nearest main town, half a mile from a main road, and with no shops or schools for a mile. I would have thought that kind of area would be highly sought after! It's so quiet and rural, yet only 4 miles from a large main town.
Sounds in the middle of nowhere to me. I would not want to live there, I want to be able to walk to places.
Well they need two bedrooms don't they? And someone with a mobility disability probably wouldn't want to live in the middle of nowhere. Therefore maybe this couple were the only ones who wanted it.(AKA HRH_MUngo)
Member #10 of £2 savers club
Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology: Terry Eagleton0 -
lighting_up_the_chalice wrote: »Yet the lettings results for Leeds tell a very different story. Even band C (no housing need) are being offered a wide range of properties.
http://www.leedshomes.org.uk/default.aspx?menuPath=LettingsResults
I live in Leeds so know the areas well. If you look at the type of house, number of bids etc where a property has gone to someone in band Called, they have very low numbers of bids (3 in some cases). Also most of the properties are either highrise flats or bedsits/sheltered housing, although there are some houses. It does come down to the areas mainly though.
The average time to be rehoused if in band C here is 5-10 years if you are looking at the better areas. The houses in such areas regularly get between 200-300 bids!0 -
Lord_Baltimore wrote: »
How many more contributors are going to guess that a hidden disability may be part of the qualifying reason?
I wasn't guessing, I was giving another perspective.We made it! All three boys have graduated, it's been hard work but it shows there is a possibility of a chance of normal (ish) life after a diagnosis (or two) of ASD. It's not been the easiest route but I am so glad I ignored everything and everyone and did my own therapies with them.
Eldests' EDS diagnosis 4.5.10, mine 13.1.11 eekk - now having fun and games as a wheelchair user.0 -
seven-day-weekend wrote: »Sounds in the middle of nowhere to me. I would not want to live there, I want to be able to walk to places.
Well they need two bedrooms don't they? And someone with a mobility disability probably wouldn't want to live in the middle of nowhere. Therefore maybe this couple were the only ones who wanted it.
We are in a village 8 miles from the nearest small town and with no public transport at all.....our grandson (11) lives with us and gets a free school bus to school - 7 miles away.....he leaves the house at around 07:45 and gets back about 16:15.
If you don't drive it would difficult to work, there is virtually no work in the village. We have a doctors and they dispense prescriptions, a Co-op and a small corner shop. A mobile library visits every week.
There is no mains gas in the village, heating is either oil or propane...cooking is either electric and/or propane.....we have oil heating, an electric oven and a propane hob....oil and propane aren't cheap. Logs and coal aren't cheap either...we use both through the winter as we have an open fire.
I looked on our local council website at housing and in the villages near us (again no mains gas or public transport) there are houses with zero bids....in and round our nearest town all of the houses have multiple bids.0 -
Lord_Baltimore wrote: »In your opinion. FOI exists as part of the democratic process. You seem to like it for your uses but don't want it available to others.
No - I think the legislation is important and should be widely used, but submitting misinformed requests which have no chance of getting the information they ask for is a waste of time and money. Asking a HA (not covered by the legislation) for confidential personal data (likely exempted from release under FOI, and covered by data protection law) is not going to work.
If you want to use FOI find out more about how social housing is allocated you might, for example, ask your council about what proportion of - say - bungalows go to people with different points scores or different amounts of time on the housing list. No guarantee this type of request would get any info, but much more likely than asking an organisation not bound by the legislation!0
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