What do you think about council housing and people who live there?

[Borntolurk]

Genuinely curious about this. We finally received a council tenancy four years ago, after privately renting for upwards of 11 years. We are very grateful that we have the house we do, and treat it well. The security felt and ability to feel like we have an actual home (as opposed to house sitting), is immense.

However, I’ve had people I know suddenly become less interested in being friends, when they found out that our property was rented from the council. Others let slip accidentally/without realising what they were saying, that we should accept whatever happened to our house (shoddy contractor’s work for example) as it was ‘free’. Sigh.

So I guess I’ve been wondering whether this is the general consensus these days, and why do folk feel this way? Experience? Lack of other affordable housing? I can understand that!

Thanks for your thoughts.

We certainly need social housing but I don't agree with lifelong tenancy and right to buy as it becomes a mission for some people to get one by purposely reducing their quality of life to qualify for one and often tagging children and forcing them to live in horrible conditions. But I would think you're lucky and count myself as a mug for paying 2/3 x as much in private rental and I think that's were the resentment starts. I think in general, social housing should be for only the extremely vulnerable, nhs staff, transport staff, airport staff, police force, teachers etc especially in cities like London and people who work in jobs to hold the infrastructure of the country and cities they live in otherwise what's the point.

It comes from rent.

@nocantdo I really really hope people remember attitudes like yours if we are ever fed the "we are all in this together" garbage again.

@JenniferBooth good for you

Yes. I feel a lot of the people on here saying 'I wouldn't think anything' might think twice about taking a walk with me around the council estates where I grew up and where some of my family still live.

Some of them are scary places and it is a fact there is a higher crime rate on some council estates.

Obviously that doesn't mean everyone living in council housing is a criminal, that's not what I'm saying at all.

But some council housing estates have a very different vibe to the more middle class area where I now live (and am very lucky to). There are some very unhinged people living on the council estate near my family home and I honestly worry about my young relatives growing up on those estates.

I don't know what the solution is around some council estates being 'hubs' for crime, I guess there isn't one really and people are lucky to have council housing provided these days, but some of those people are forced to live in areas which are really not ideal to raise children.

Well, I think my neighbour is a disgusting excuse for a human being that regularly verbally abuses her children. Other than that I think they are normal humans going about their lives, some have made poor decisions, often a result of a less than stellar childhood. I don't think there is enough social housing and what there is is in poor repair. We should go to a council or subsidised key-worker scheme again so that public sector workers can afford to live in the cities they serve.

I was a council tenant, single parent with 1 child with ASD, I used the right-to-buy (shock horror) after having an inheritance that was too small for a mortgage with my income but large enough to buy, it gives me security, its a leasehold so the council is still responsible for the bricks and mortar and I pay 1/4 of any costs that are accrued in maintaining them.