Do you support social housing?

lostinrates

BillJones wrote: »

Well, the normal way to do it would be to spend your twenties working as hard as you can to become well qualified, well skilled, and respected in your career, and to save very hard. If you find a partner during those years, you then make sure that you are compatible, get married, and set up a home, and start your pension planning.

Once you are there, and have a deent savings pot, that's the time to think about having a family. See how the finances work out with the first child, and if you still have plenty spare, then consider a second.

Of course, you can still never have utter certainty that you will always be fine, but you've done as much as can reasonably be expected.

It's a million miles from having a child at 25 years old, with a partner who you've only known a few years, when you are in a low paid job, and you have no savings, and are going to need benefits to get by.

Of course.....its not wise to have a child too early and with nothing behind you, but , biologically twenty five is no bad age for women to have children. Putting off starting families into thirties is not with out repercussions both individually and on a wider scale for NHs and fertility treatment etc.

purch

In the 1970's the amount of "subsidy" required for each council owned property was far less, even if there was one at all.

The market/fair cost of rented property was much closer to the rents charged for social housing because supply was much closer to need.

Looking at the issue from todays perspective it does indeed seem absurd that the cost of social housing is subsidised to such an extent, but in the context of history it is easy to see why it has reached this situation.

Nowadays we are in a situation where greed and need set's the price for rented property.

BTL owners need to at the very least meet their funding costs, and hopefully make a positive return, and need forces people to pay whatever they can afford (often with state assistance) for rented property.

It's not sustainable in the longer term.

IveSeenTheLight

purch wrote: »

What I meant about you going wrong was that you asked a simple direct question, which on this forum means a thread full of muddle, confusion, cross purposes and argument usually from posters who actually agree with each other but won't stop arguing long enough to realise that fact.
.

It doesn't matter what complexity surrounding any question or debate is posed on this forum, there will always be " thread full of muddle, confusion, cross purposes and argument" within this forum

Although arguably, if the debate is more complex, it does seem to filter out a more of those who do not understand it

Loughton_Monkey

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

It doesn't matter what complexity surrounding any question or debate is posed on this forum, there will always be " thread full of muddle, confusion, cross purposes and argument" within this forum

Although arguably, if the debate is more complex, it does seem to filter out a more of those who do not understand it

Sadly, life really is complex, let alone the debate about it, and it isn't helped by trying to pose a 'simple' question like "Do you support social housing?" This is because (a) even within the context of housing, the question is ill-defined and as long as a piece of string, and (b) it cannot sensibly by looked at in isolation from all the other elements of our "welfare State".

Many people understand 'living on a low income'. I certainly do, but I guess (as a graduate) I was more confident than most that ultimately my life was going to get better. But for half of my career, I was 'getting by'. By comparison, there are those who find it harder to progress, and have no choice but to live on £X,000 for the immediate and longer term future because that's what they earn.....

It is maybe these people for whom I have the most respect. Those earning, say, £22K - maybe just above the 'benefits level', pay their taxes, pay their rent, do a bit of overtime for luxuries.....


We must never forget that at the 'hard end' of the benefits sector, we have three very generous wedges of 'benefit'. We pay the following:

• A substantial amount of money upon which to 'live'.
• A "never discussed" big subsidy within that of not having to pay a penny income tax or NI on that money at all. Often the same for Council Tax.
• And then we expect free, cheap, or subsidised housing on top!

It must be extremely difficult for that £22K (less tax) earner to watch (say) £21K net of tax flow freely into the bank account of the single parent next door who chose to be in that situation and doesn't have to work.

antrobus

MrsE wrote: »

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_home_ownership_rate

Not if you compare it to similar eu countries, like Germany, France, the Scandinavian countries for instance.

You mean Scandinavian countries like Sweden (with 69.9% home ownership), Norway (84.8%), Finland (73.9%), compared to the UK rate of 66.7%?

http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=ilc_lvho02&lang=en

BillJones

lostinrates wrote: »

Of course.....its not wise to have a child too early and with nothing behind you, but , biologically twenty five is no bad age for women to have children. Putting off starting families into thirties is not with out repercussions both individually and on a wider scale for NHs and fertility treatment etc.

Yes, and if you are doing well in work, are in a stable relationship, have a bit money behind you etc the all is well and good. If you don't then waiting until later is also generally a good idea.

My friiends are generally all in professional careers ((bankers, engineers, lawyers etc.) and very few of them would dream of aving children in their twenties; most wait until their thirties. I can understand why they'd feel a bit resentful at being asked to subsidise low earners who preferred to jump in at 20 before they could support a family themsleves.

lostinrates

BillJones wrote: »

Yes, and if you are doing well in work, are in a stable relationship, have a bit money behind you etc the all is well and good. If you don't then waiting until later is also generally a good idea.

My friiends are generally all in professional careers ((bankers, engineers, lawyers etc.) and very few of them would dream of aving children in their twenties; most wait until their thirties. I can understand why they'd feel a bit resentful at being asked to subsidise low earners who preferred to jump in at 20 before they could support a family themsleves.

I think this is so, but it doesn't mean that what you (and I) think of as the financially responsible way is necessarily the right model either. I think perhaps we haven't hit it yet. As a lawyers wife in my thirties I can say that increasingly my childless girlfriends in their mid thirties are feeling resentful. A lot of them haven't got the financial security they feel they should have from 'paying their dues' that they feel they have (whether they have or not may be debatable) but the situation is a lot of them cannot maintain their lifestyle and expect to have children, let alone offer their children the same lifestyles they had.

DH and I are doing ok, but we'd be making different choices if we had a child or three (his parents had three) to support. Personally, having lost twenties to I'll health and knowing I'm infertile its almost a relief to be feeling almost 'over the hill' and the social pressure off as the window of presumed fertility closes.

Loughton_Monkey

BillJones wrote: »

Yes, and if you are doing well in work, are in a stable relationship, have a bit money behind you etc the all is well and good. If you don't then waiting until later is also generally a good idea.

My friiends are generally all in professional careers ((bankers, engineers, lawyers etc.) and very few of them would dream of aving children in their twenties; most wait until their thirties. I can understand why they'd feel a bit resentful at being asked to subsidise low earners who preferred to jump in at 20 before they could support a family themsleves.

I don't disagree at all. But my own thought go slightly wider than this......

This is in the context of "choices". Personally I would usually recommend a couple to get a house and money under their belts before having children.... But I am equally relaxed about people who deliberately decide that, for them, they would prefer to get the kids out early. If (and only if) this has been thought through in the light of obvious financial consequences that come with it.

The thing, though, that irritates me in the extreme is [what I believe to be a large proportion of] people who have apparently gone down a specific route (in other words have made those choices which have obvious financial consequences) but who find it difficult or impossible to accept those obvious consequences that 99 out of 100 friends could have advised them would happen.

Simple things. Deciding not to save for a pension, and then 20 years later whinging about how they will never be able to afford to retire. Deciding to leave home, shack up, and rent a 'nice' house at £800 a month rent, stick a 'nice' car (on HP) in the drive, and then whinging about not being able to get a deposit together.....

I may be wrong, but I feel that this is obvious to most of my generation, but somehow eludes most of the younger generations.

Kennyboy66

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

It is maybe these people for whom I have the most respect. Those earning, say, £22K - maybe just above the 'benefits level', pay their taxes, pay their rent, do a bit of overtime for luxuries.....


We must never forget that at the 'hard end' of the benefits sector, we have three very generous wedges of 'benefit'. We pay the following:

• A substantial amount of money upon which to 'live'.
• A "never discussed" big subsidy within that of not having to pay a penny income tax or NI on that money at all. Often the same for Council Tax.
• And then we expect free, cheap, or subsidised housing on top!

It must be extremely difficult for that £22K (less tax) earner to watch (say) £21K net of tax flow freely into the bank account of the single parent next door who chose to be in that situation and doesn't have to work.

Who could disagree with this.

It does however seem to peddle the fiction that there are loads of single parents getting £21k tax free plus free housing.

The truth is more like a single parent with one child would get just over £155 per week plus housing benefit (lets assume this covers their rent).

Council Tax benefit was abolished this year, and it depends on what council tax reduction scheme is run locally.

Matt1977

Yes, I support social housing.

I grew up in a council house. Well, my parents bought theirs in 1982/3 I must confess. Athough they benefited from RTB (Right To Buy), I dislike that new council homes were never built in place of the ones sold off. I believe that RTB should be albolished.

It is great that councils are allowed to build homes for rent once again (without financial penalties from Central Government). Plenty of choice of homes in the private rental and private sales market but limited supply of affordable housing. My local authority needs to build around 4,000 of these dwellings to meet the demand on the register. I am currently on the housing register - I would gladly waive my 'Right To Buy' if offered a tenancy.

Furthermore, it would be great to force more competition between the private rented sector and the affordable rented sector. Private rental is just too damn expensive at the moment. It seems barmy that the rent on a 4 or 5 bedroomed council house is less than a private rented 1 bedroomed flat (in my area it is anyway). :huh:

With the introduction of the spare room subsidy (aka: bedroom tax), smaller households and lofty heating bills, councils ought to focus their efforts on increasing the provision of 1 bedroomed flats, bungalows and houses. With decent storage space too.:)