Do you support social housing?

dktreesea

I support social housing, provided there is enough of it to require people who needed a 3 bedroom house, say, to bring up their children, have to downsize to a one bedroom house once they have flown the coop. Social housing is meant to be based on need, not a nice big home for life just because you're used to the home and have had it for years. The bedroom tax is a poor substitute, and only exists because not enough social housing has been built.

Matt1977

CLAPTON wrote: »

you say you are on the council waiting for housing;
what are your circumstances; what sort of property do you currently live in?

I'm in a low need band - currently rent a place privately.

Loughton_Monkey

dktreesea wrote: »

......That's not quite the same as having a £9k a year PT income, both getting whatever the top up is for WTC, say £70 a week, but only getting the LHA for 1 bedroom, not 3 bedrooms, leaving them with a shortfall, of, say, £80 a week to cover their rent. Maybe they can't increase their hours. Maybe they don't have many skills that employers want. And it's 25 to 30 years of that low income potentially, i.e. before they qualify for the pension.

... er... I wonder why after not working for the last 20 years they wouldn't have skills?

So obviously you believe that once the 3 kids have left the house, it is the taxpayer's job to support an idle family of 2 adults in a 3 bed house for the rest of their 'non working' lives, and then pay them a nice pension?

Or do you, like 99% of the rest of us, after fully supporting them and their kids for the last 20 years, believe they can starve on the streets before anyone cares?

Matt1977

springdreams wrote: »

I would imagine quite a bit of that demand is not from people who are in short term need of social housing, but is rather created by people who are renting privately, but would prefer the highly tax payer subsidised rental rates of social housing :cool:

If I were to be offered a council or Housing Association flat then I would be paying for the rent out of my earnings, not with assistance from Housing Benefit.

Upon reflection, I would in fact prefer a privately rented house. However, I would like a place that I could spend a little money on and make it into a home without the thought in the back of my mind that the landlord could serve me my 2 months notice to quit after prettying up his or her property.

LittleAoife

I support social housing, 2 years ago the private house that I was renting was sold and the new landlord decided to turn it into a student house to make more money, I was served notice, I looked everywhere for somewhere new to rent for me, my husband and 5 children and was told that as I now needed a guarantor I would have little to no chance of finding somewhere. I was placed in a B and B and continued looking for a house, I eventually found one only to be told at the last min that as I didn't earn enough fully cover my rent and I would need a housing benefit top up the landlord had decided to give it to someone else ( this was on the day I arrived to sign and pay the deposit) after a year of looking and living in 1 room with shared bathroom/ kitchen/ living room we eventually had a call from the council to tell us that we had become eligible for a house. It was on the bidding list but too many people had turned it down so they said you can take it or continue waiting. - of course I took it! The rent is reasonable ( it's housing associTion), it has no garden and was a mess when we moved in, graffiti on the walls and no carpets but...... It's a roof over our heads with water/ heating and enough space and I'm bloody grateful. I am now paying off my debts and hopefully will eventually be able to move on and allow someone else to benefit from this home, I see this as a helping hand to get things back on track and I'm a heck not going to abuse it. I can pay debts of and for the first time in my life have the opportunity to save for something better ( in life, not just my own house) .
Without the help of this home I would jot be able to do this.

LittleAoife

Matt1977 wrote: »

If I were to be offered a council or Housing Association flat then I would be paying for the rent out of my earnings, not with assistance from Housing Benefit.

Upon reflection, I would in fact prefer a privately rented house. However, I would like a place that I could spend a little money on and make it into a home without the thought in the back of my mind that the landlord could serve me my 2 months notice to quit after prettying up his or her property.

Which is what happened to me when I was privately renting.

princessdreamer

I'm kinda on the fence but I voted no. Something needs to be done about excessive rent and slum landlords. That said I don't support having a subsidised house for life or in some cases now where it gets passed down to the next generation.

N1AK

JencParker wrote: »

Are you proposing that the only people that should have children are the middle class and wealthy?

Are you suggesting that I should have to pay for people to have children which they knew they couldn't afford to look after?

The only people that should intentionally have families are people who can support them. When did some people get this bizarre notion that everyone had a right to require the state to fund their decision to have children?

N1AK

dktreesea wrote: »

The bedroom tax is a poor substitute, and only exists because not enough social housing has been built.

Actually without some financial incentive to downsize you wouldn't have an incentive for people in larger council houses to downsize to more appropriate properties.

As with many of the reforms of this government I agree with the principle but have serious issues with how they have moved to resolve it. If the government had spent some time and money ensuring that smaller housing was available in regions before screwing people in areas where they couldn't downsize if they wanted to.

mayonnaise

Matt1977 wrote: »

I'm in a low need band - currently rent a place privately.

Why are you even on the council housing waiting list when you can afford to rent privately?