Social housing

[tonywiltshire]

Social housing should be reserved for people on low incomes; it is unfair for people with a high income to occupy social housing when people on a low income are forced to rent privately. I know incomes can reduce as well as increase but would it not be fairer when the joint income reaches, say twice the average income, to be given notice to leave so that a low-income family can occupy social housing. If circumstances reduce income the original family can re-apply for social housing.

I know this will produce some anomalies but would it not be fairer than being given social housing for life regardless of income?

[emmie]

But many don't want to move, if they have carers who look after them and have a reasonably settled life. I know i would move if i won the lottery, but until that day comes then can't see going anywhere.

[Brenden]

Good for you em.

[rowanwitch]

mostly because in areas of older housing stock it can be very 'type specific' in newer estates it is more likely to include a mix of one/two/three bedroom places....flats/maisonnettes, studios and houses certainly the sprawling council estates like parts of Barking and Dagenham in Essex St Helier in london, Weoley Castle in Birmingham, and similar are pretty much all family houses with a few maisonettes and it is likely this would require a move of some distance. There is also the availability issue....can that older person be allowed to wait a year or so until something local comes up while a family is living in awful conditions elsewhere....

[ladybirder]

Not wanting to move is not a good enough reason to deprive a family of a house em, in my view.

[I.Don No]

we live in a council house and all our children were brought up there. When hubby and I are left with an empty nest why should we be asked to move, when all our memories are here?

If we could have afforded to buy a house we would not be asked to leave.

oh dear, sorry, it must be our fault that we earn way below the average wage.

[emmie]

LB, if you are a home owner, and could afford another home of equal quality shall we say, but smaller, as in downsizing, and in an area that has your network of friends, family, then i would agree. But having been offered a number of properties some time back, which were so bad that no one would live there, and so far from any decent bus/rail links, considered the options, and that was to stay put. People in council housing, not all perhaps, but many have invested money, time and effort in keeping these homes nice, and perhaps would have liked to have owned them, but just didn't earn enough, so had no choice but to stay put.

[shaneystar2]

Why should people be forced out of their homes where they've lived all their lives to make way for low income families ?
Lots of these people are now low income pensioners who would be totally lost in a different environment .
Having lived for many years in one place they build up a network of friends and neighbours .Why should they be shuffled off to live in anonimity .
I'm lucky enough to own my own home and woe betide the person who says I have to make room for others .I want my independence in my own home which I have worked for .They can carry me out feet first .
Unless of course I become non compos mentis .Whereupon I may shoot myself to save all those who think otherwise the trouble .

[LoftyLottie]

I am a home owner and will have to downsize at some point in order to release funds to have anywhere near a decent standard of living. in my own home. It hasn't been easy owning our own home - it's certainly not because we are high owners, far from it. Our home is probably more frugal than most council houses and everything we have had done to it we have had to work for to do ourselves. My home holds lots of memories too, but we will still have to sell and move at some point.

And probably at the end of the day our home wherever it might be will end up having to be sold to pay for the care of one or the other of us.

I am of retirement age and soon my husband will be retired too. I compare what we face with what our friends in their council home face and think they are better off and that we shouldn't have worked so hard to buy a home.

I have mixed feelings on this issue.

It would be nice to think that all of us could stay in our own homes and live comfortably until the end of ours days with our memories around us - but it's not always possible.

[LoftyLottie]

Oooh, what a lot of mistakes I made

'High income owners'

[ladybirder]

If I lived on my own in a 3/4 bedroomed council house I would be happy to move to make way for a low income FAMILY. That's who the property was built to house, not a single pensioner. Just because you've lived there for years and years and brought your family up there does not give you the right to hog it. I would consider their need to be greater than mine and would be mortified at the thought that I was stopping a low income family with children from having the same advantage that I had when I was given the home. That's what council houses are for. This probably makes me sound sanctimonious but I just think that's the right thing to do. And I bet some of you would change your minds if you were on the Housing List.

[LoftyLottie]

Actually, I think I agree with you Ladybirder. The fact is that the housing does not belong to you and is social housing. I think that some older people can get very selfish, but then I might be the same in a few years.

Quite honestly if I thought I would get offered a nice council flat if I was left on my own and couldn't cope with managing or affording to live in my home I would be very grateful. As far as I can see though the OP is not talking about elderly people occupying council accommodation, he is talking about people on high incomes still living in their social housing and I would agree that this shouldn't happen, regardless of the age of the occupier.

And I don't think that people should be allowed to buy their council houses at below market rate either or given concessions. Council housing should be for those that have no other options in my opinion.

[ladybirder]

I don't think people should be allowed to buy their council houses full stop. They are for low income families who can't afford to buy, full stop.

[LoftyLottie]

PS I was brought up in a council flat in the 1950s/60s. My parents bought their own home in the 60's because they scrimped and saved to do so - it wasn't easy and we still had a frugal lifestyle. They could have stayed put, but the norm back then seemed to be that if you could afford in any way to buy then you did.

[Brenden]

Why do people in sub-standard accomodation still continue to have more children, in this day and age they have a choice - or is it to get bigger houses - then try asking them to move when the children have left home- I think not. Cynical I may be but people seem to think it is their right, not having worked and saved for it.

[LoftyLottie]

Unfortunately ladybirder (and I agree with you) a certain lady Prime Minister made a mockery of what social housing was all about.

[LoftyLottie]

Is council accommodation sub-standard Brendan. Most of it that I see is of quite high standards.

If you go onto a housing estate, the houses that are still without double glazing, heating, new kitchens etc. are the privately owned ones!!

[shaneystar2]

Hmmm..my youngest son has had work hard to save and scrimp to own his own home only recently aged 30.
Some of these so called" families "have children just to get council homes and that's a fact !
It's a sensitive subject .
Since the right to buy there's been less and less social housing being built .
Thatcher saw to that .

[LoftyLottie]

But other than that Brendan I agree with you

[ladybirder]

Yes Lottie, she did, and I thought she was wrong at the time.

[Brenden]

By sub=standard which were the wrong words to use, I meant not enough rooms for their needs.