to think that the Goverment's plans for Social Housing are disastrous

[donkeyderby]

Are beloved Govt are talking about charging 80 - 90% of market rents for social housing.

I'm not in favour of ridiculously low rents for council tenants, but won't this simply place thousands more people in the Housing Benefit trap of not being able to afford to work?

Uncontrolled property prices have contributed significantly to our society of haves and have nots and private rental prices must be keeping so many people chained to Housing Benefit. The average price for a 3 bedroom property in our area is around the £1000 per month mark. How can that be affordable to someone on a low wage? Ditto £900 PCM.

How will this work apart from going back to some Victorian era of cramming families into one bedroom?

Gin anyone?

And will enable this country to build a new aircraft carrier (albeit, courtesy of NewLab, without any aircraft on it)and hence keeping in employment thousands of people in shipyards and adjacent industries

I did not say someone will regulate somebody - if there is no money, asking price cannot be met, rents forced down

Simple law of supply and demand

If demand is not supported by cash, prices have only one way to go

Which we have already seen in the case of mortgage availability and house price correlation

Tangle - I'll try and answer it...

Over the last 3 years £8.4bn of govt funding was invested into new build - mainly homes for social rent but also for affordable sale and in 09/10 £5bn was invested in approximately 52,900 homes

It's a drop in the ocean against the shortage of housing in this country and current housing waiting lists but with the rumoured cuts in the social housing budget tomorrow, all affordable house building will stop or slow down to ridiculous levels

Those numbers aren't right

8 bln - non-materealised "commitments" - never happened

Budget for 2005-2010 - meagre £600mln

However - in 2009/2010 - in the wake of financial crisis and in order to maintain HIGH house prices they spent £3.3 bln buying unwanted new-built stock from developers.

The NAtional affordable housing programme for 2008-11 was £8.4bn of which almost all has been invested with latest figures here

No idea on figures but i agree the purchase of unwanted developer stock was a rubbish idea designed to support the contraction industry and much of the stock was poor quality inner city flats

Contraction? Construction .... Damn predictive text on phone

No idea on figures but i agree the purchase of unwanted developer stock was a rubbish idea designed to support the contraction industry and much of the stock was poor quality inner city flats

Birmingham City Council conducted a report/investigation into the possiblity of buying up new build flats, they concluded the quality and dimensions were not good enough, ok for some poor bugger to pay £600 a month private rent or mortgage on though. It's all been 10 years of madness. I bet a lot of them get demolished.

threetimespink, I´d like to believe you are correct, but I think your idea is flawed. There is a chronic shortage of rented accomodation, especially in areas of relatively high employment(ie London) or high demand for second homes/holiday lets (ie the south west).

Landlords in my area; South Devon, will simply continue to let their properties to holidaymakers during the summer, and leave them empty during the winter. Alternatively, they will sell them off to wealthy pensioners and second home owners.

DS (then 3yo) and I were made homeless 4 years ago because there were no properties here to rent that were affordable and would take children and DSS (at that time I was unemployed). HB even then would not cover the cost of privates rented property for our need. Now it will be even worse. Local average wages are chronically low.

Nearby Salcombe is a ghost town in winter. That is what will happen here. And there will be no relief when they close Devonport with the MOD cuts to the navy. No jobs, no homes. No young people. Just pensioners and rich holiday makers.

Errr...just thought...if all the social housing rent is going up, and lots of people in social housing are on housing benefit, don't the words 'shooting oneself in the foot' spring to mind?

Expat
Whats the difference between not working up near you and not working down here? At least there is a chance of space to raise a family which is just not happening where I am.
The jobs will come if a load more people live there. People will always see an opportunity to make money. Plus the infrastructure will expand.

Down here it's just ...ram a few more in the school,patch the potholes (what more do we want than the A3 tunnel)and hope the hospitals will cope.There is literally no more room to build anything useful in most towns.

'course they are disastrous DD

Tory ideology isn't it? reward the independent and

'At least there is a chance of space to raise a family which is just not happening where I am.'

there isn't the space because everything is subject to planning permission and the rules are just as strict about building on greenbelts and flood plains. affordable family housing is at just as much of a premium because no one wants to build houses for affordable rent. they want to build flats so they can cram them in.

and no, jobs don't just come.

they were taken away with a battleaxe in the north over 20 years ago and they're still not here!

infrastructure costs money. lots and lots of money that people who aren't working can't pay.

not a solution.

the solution is to create more jobs.

but that won't happen.

the opposite will.

Re raising social housing rents closer to market rate. I am on a reasonably good professional wage and we could not afford to rent privately in this relatively cheap area. Needless to say we would not be entitled to HB. I thank god we bought before the boom and have a relatively low mortgage. Otherwise we'd be on the streets. And that's with a degree and a good job. What the hell do they expect people to do at the bottom of the pile, or specifically those who just miss the HB threshold? Have they thought this through at all?

Yes, the problem with private landlords, too, and foisting all this on them, is that they're able to, in addition to streeting you 6 months after you move in, specify 'No children,' and 'No DSS'.

Where are all these willing landlords?

'"Under Labour the benefits culture has gone completely out of control where people are rewarded for NOT working."

"Despite 10 Years of debt fuelled Economic Boom into the End of 2007 the Benefits Class had continued to grow relentless and now totals more than 8 million of those of working age against the working population of 28 million."

So, tell me why, Pink, as a carer mother to 2 disabled chidlren with a post-redundancy low income DH THAT IS MY BLOODY FAULT?

yet, I am struggling now. Our LL won;t decide whetehr to renew our rent until after tomorrow.

My thought exactly donkeyderby.

This is just going to mean more poverty and suffering for families on the lowest incomes, whether working or on benefits. Rents won't go down due to these measures.

Can you imagine going to your landlord and saying; "sorry, I can't pay that rent as my HB/salary/tc has been cut." Shortly followed by the reply; "well find somewhere else then". There will be a frantic scramble for new rented property, most likely creating a surge in the price as well. People will just be forced to pay some way some how or become homeless. I can see crime rates rocketing.

And almost all of them say no DSS, certainly when I was renting in the past.

Plenty of them also say 'No children'.

'Would suit young professionals or a couple'.

Oh god yes, that's very true. And god forbid that you have pets (although I guess you wouldn't if you knew you had to rent).

Course you know the real joke?

These ideas to make people get a job?

I had an interview Monday; DH couldn;t help out (crucial exam- can;t risk his income for a chance), Mum busy,

no agency could help with SN childcare

hence, interview (for a good researcher job I could fit aorund kids) cancelled.

My benefit take would have dropped hugely for one respite session

Wankers

Lots of houses and large, upper flats in converted houses (of two flats) that are, 'No DSS. No children.'

So they sit and sit.

The owners obviously don't have a mortgage on them or can afford to let them sit empty because that's what they do.

And they don't sell them because they can't command the huge whack they did back in 2007.

You leave in a hamlet with 2 families and 1 bakery.

The baker makes 2 loafs a day - he cannot make more and cannot make less.

Until yesterday the 2 families between them had £1 of their own money and £1 of benefits money.

The baker took all their money - £2

As of today they only have £1 of their own cash and no benefits.

The baker has 2 options:

• take all the money - £1 - and give them the loafs now at half price - 50p each

• close the shop (sell it off)

He may not have any other choice but to sell it, if he is not in fact renting the premises, because he can no longer afford rent, rates, power and other overheads.

Helpful Pink

Now do you ahve a cure for autism?

becuase if not your empathy lacking posts are meaningless to me

Sorry, but bollocks would it reduce the private rent to the level of social housing rents. Otherwise it wouldn't cover the LL's BTL mortgage, at least not in my area. (South East, average price of a 3-bed mid terrace shoebox here is £210K atm, if they bought 2-3 yrs ago it was £250K).

All it would do is raise the cost of social housing to the price of private rents. In my area, 3-bed social hosing is an average of £450 pcm. Private 3-bed is £900 pcm.

And FFS when will people realise that it's NOT only people on the dole that live in social housing? Most people I know in my area that live in social housing work FT for between £12K-£16K pa. How the FUCK do you suggest they either a) afford to pay 50% of the rent on a private place which would end up being £450-ish pcm...out of a take home of £1000 pcm. Or b) Buying a property worth £210K on an income of £12-£16K...which would mean someone giving them a mortgae that was 17.5 times their annual income. Can you see anyone doing that??

Just chuck the hardworking poor out to die with the benefits scroungers, after all they can't be working that hard if they're ony earning £12K/£16K pa, can they. .