AIBU to ask if the plan to 'prioritise British families' for social housing is an attack on asylum seekers or a long overdue reform?

If I moved to Australia and got my Australian citizenship, I wouldn’t be Australian, I would still be British. If I had children, they would be Australian, technically, but would be British Australians.

Could you explain what IS happening then, because it certainly does look as if migrants are being allocated social housing ahead of those on the council list?

Ahem, Labour had IIRC fourteen years in which to scrap Right to Buy, but they didn’t.
Why was that, I wonder? Could it possibly be because they thought it’d lose them votes?

At first I was sceptical of the story, but had it verified by several people . One person who wasn’t rehoused was renting privately, had parents living locally and had been born and brought up in this place.

I'm not surprised people were furious!

Long overdue reform.

Why on earth should British families not be prioritised?

I worked for a while in a large village.
Around 8 council houses were built, I heard 3 went to people fairly recently arrived from Eastern Europe who had declared as homeless and were Band A top priority.There was anger as some local people had been waiting on the housing list for years and had lived in this village for decades.

This should have always been the case and then maybe we wouldn’t be in such as mess and the people here could afford to have a family

Says who?
That's just nativist BS. I know many foreign born Brits and I would defy you to guess that they're first generation.

No, you can’t. You may have citizenship but you will never be British.

You can be foreign born and be British.

but it blames a group of people for a housing emergency that they did not create.”

I think this language is interesting and I see it a lot in discussions like this.

I believe it's actually a very subtle attempt to push the discussion in a certain direction. Because, of course it's not the "fault" of foreigners that the housing situation is what it is - that is objectively true.

But it's not really the point. The point, as I understand it, is that the naturalized population should be given first consideration for housing. Others need to get it through other avenues, or perhaps if the government is set on having them, it will prompt them to build more social housing or look at other models.

I think with housing there is an issue that in many countries, there is a group of people on the bottom of the social and economic totem pole who it is very easy to ignore, and displace when they are inconvenient. And if those people aren't prioritised, they end up with nothing. To say this isn't to "blame" any other group, it's not the fault of newcomers, or even middle class people.

But no place should be welcoming additional workers or anyone else in if it will mean infrastructure is inadequate for all the people who are already there. Which, btw, includes other people who used to be newcomers.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/17615f4d1a878e36 even more hotels and housing was required without the public knowing

Yes I agree, it's not right

I bet you felt like telling them so

It makes a mockery out of those families who want to work, need housing but aren't high earners.

This is the problem. I worked in housing and many people who grew up in social/council housing have a massive sense of entitlement. Eg a woman got a new build 2 bed flat after having 1 dc. Within 6 years she had 5dc. She was down screaming on a regular basis after dc3 about how the council have a duty to rehouse her as they are overcrowded and it's affecting her mental health and her dc have behavioural problems. It was a disgrace, against her human rights and she was suicidal blah blah blah. There were so many like this, they felt zero responsibility for their own housing situation, it was their right to have as many dc as they wanted and council had to deal with it. The council can't magic up properties that aren't there.
The chronically disabled and those working should have priority. Why should a non working person (who isn't sick) get a low cost home?

@greengreengrass25 yes it's irresponsible to have 7 kids in a 3 bed house, I agree. And I explained many times that by having a child every couple of years in a 3 bed meant that the tenant was making themselves intentionally overcrowded, but that's another story.

About time.

I've sadly not had my contract renewed out the blue by my boss. It's a relief in a way, the guys a total arse, and I spent more time dealing with high court bailiffs than customers. He's in a n eye watering amount of debt.

The issue is my home comes with my job. And overnight, I have no job. DH worked with me, so he has been let go too. So now, neither of us has an income until I can find a new position. Which is proving difficult.

It's a grey area with regards our situation, with normal landlords you get your section 21 to.quit because you have a tenancy. We don't. As a result we've been told to leave by the end of the month.

I called my local council who said they can't help. They simply don't have temp accomodation for homeless families because what they used to use has been commandeered for undocumented migrants. That they can offer to put out two DCs in foster care (yeah right) but that's it. We will have to find out own accommodation. We live in a big town centre.

So I've called lettings agents and contacted landlords. No interest. We have no job, so have had to apply for UC. So they won't touch us. Their mortgages don't allow them to rent to social tenants. Or they simply ask us for 6 months to a year's rent in advance. That's been the constant request. And we do have savings. But these I begrudge giving to someone when we hopefully will find a new live in position asap. We were told by 4 of them that this is seen as rent in advance deposit so not refundable which I sure I'd against the law but who knows with landlords now.

If it wasn't for us having a good friend locally who is going abroad and allowing us to house sit his house, we would face the reality of sleeping in our car with two dcs. And no one cares. We aren't a priority was what I was told by the local council. We are also homeless due to our own fault apparently although how she worked that out I've no idea.

Yes we should be helping our own first. I work hard as does my DH, we have paid into the system yet it's failed at us the worst time.

Hmm...... having recently worked in social care by my eyes have been well and truly opened.

I saw first hand several people jumping the queue, accessing services/support and being treated much more favourably than British citizens who had lived and worked here all their lives and had contributed to the system.

I honestly would have never believed it before because I always thought it was a bit of an Alf Garnett opinion.

Examples I could give are pretty shocking but I can't post them as I would totally out myself!

Yes that's exactly the problem

Why couldn't the new arrivals go up North.

However it is irresponsible imo to have 7 dc if you can't really afford them and expect the government to provide a larger house

I used to be the housing officer for a large popular estate in the south east. We had about fifty percent working tenants, about twenty percent pensioners/disabled tenants and the rest single parents who didn't work because they had young kids. It was an old style estate with a local housing office and the tenants would come in to report repairs, pay rent, report asb and often just have a chat when they were passing. It worked really well as a community. We had a long internal waiting list for the very few four and five bedroom properties we owned as some of our tenants were very overcrowded (I remember one woman with 7 kids in a 3 bed house)

The council stopped us doing internal transfers and all properties had to go via them for nomination. You can imagine the outrage when the bigger properties were filled by recent arrivals to the UK when the existing tenants were overcrowded.

The problem was that we had properties in the north that were hard to let because nobody wanted to live in the north, and a shortage of expensive homes in the south east which were in demand.

I think we need to provide support to everyone and am keen to take more from those who are hoarding wealth to provide opportunities for those who do not have the same privilege.

I just realise that there are limited resources. We have to have a priority system and I think it should be points based. People who contribute should be rewarded. People should grow up with the knowledge that they are expected to pay in and that others will be prioritised over them if they do not. Perhaps they could earn points through volunteering, participating in training etc.

We need to make provision for those who cannot contribute. That needs to be funded by everyone who can contribute doing so.

At any point, too many people are waiting and that is a big problem. We do need a think about who we want to be at the top of the list.

That’s relying very heavily on having a system that uses people to judge levels of disability and capabilities. Currently, using PIP as a guide, it’s not infallible and still leaves people with very clear disabilities/capabilities without support. PIP was meant to support the disability regardless of work capability but often now people find that they have their claim dismissed on the basis that they have even the most part time/unstable employment directly due to their disability.

Even if PIP is awarded it’s reviewed every couple of years because there’s no function to recognise the permanence of a condition or disability unless you have a very clear terminal diagnosis.

It’s a very clumsy and expensive way of distributing support for the disabled.

the reality of that though is people who have never contributed anything and need state support, have nothing. It’s a very specific group of people. What exactly are you going to penalise?

The consequences and costs associated with taking more off people (with nothing remember) don’t work out. The inevitable consequence is a rise in crime, From stealing to begging, and social issues rising from homelessness and lack of necessities such as food and clothing.

Eventually you reach a position where not only did this group find themselves at a disadvantage in society in the first place but that they are actively being kept there. You only have to look at the average life of a person in poverty in countries that don’t support their poorest at a state level (pick any country with slums - Brazil, India…). Personally I don’t think that’s justifiable in any country with more than enough resources to provide a layer of support for people to raise themselves out of poverty. For now, the UK is one of those countrys - thinking that we should actively be taking more away from the very poorest instead of the Moanes, Windsor’s and Sunaks of this world is bonkers and arguably psychotic.

Ooh the British workers may have done these low paid jobs if there had been the offer of social housing and we wouldn't have had to keep importing more workers from abroad?

@greengreengrass25

quite possibly, neither of us actually know since it hasn’t been tried has it? It’s not a new concept to have housing provided with a job, in fact it’s a relatively new phenomenon that it’s not.