Council housing - move tenants subject to decreasing family size?

[whatever17]

Do you think that tenants in social housing should be moved after their family's have grown?

For instance, a family gets a 3 bed house then the kids grow up and leave. Should the parents be forced into a 1 bed property? SHould they have to leave their family home after 40 years?

If so, surely no one would have any pride in the property. If they feel they have "a home for life" they will beautify the garden and keep everything respectable.

Should the solution be that there is enough social housing for everyone in need?

i'm hoping to go from my 3 bed HA house,have myself and 5dc....bidding fortnightly on 4 beds. there are 5 new build estates locally,so new houses coming up frequently

just a matter of time. or i may just take a new build 3 bed.....my dc will eventually go off to pastures new,i hope!!

What are brownfield and greenfield sites?

USualsuspect nope .I am on list for council house and when I no longer need a 4 bed adapted will happily downsize to a 2 bed adapted ,Will likely always need a 2 bed due to ds sn and will always need adapted

i love tiffany im theres not been a 4 bed in this area ( im talking within 10 miles) come up for over 3 years

Brownfield - been built on previously
Greenfield - never been built on.

So where a mill had been knocked down is brownfield, the green belt is greenfield.

we have 3 or 4 a fortnight come up

move here (milton keynes) loads of new developments. all with solar panels now too. however,room sizes are quite small

have seen 2 new build 5 beds on the bidding system too

I can't see where the the brown/greenfield question has come from, but if it helps the last government introduced targets to build on brownfield due to the focus on the idea of compact cities as a basis for sustainability.

Social housing should not be seen as a "home for life" and I strongly feel that a couple with no dependants living at home do not need a 3 bed house.

Also why would they not have pride in a property all the time they live in it even if they know that one day they will have to downsize? What sort of person wants to live in a shit environment???

(Although saying that DH1 works for a letting agent maintaining property and his boss has stopped leasing to the housing association as the people who were put in these places just trashed them.)

I think if you want a "home for life" then you need to buy your own

ah .Im pretty much tied to this area ds3 has sn and a statement and is in avery good special unit and ds2 is in his gcse year so can not move his school would not be fair.But once ds2 finshed gcse I may have to look at moving .So i can then use the toilet and have a shower without having to crawl in to the bathroom

Because obviously everyone can afford to buy their own house

even a house you buy isnt a home for life....the bank own it for most of the time,and if its anything like the relationships board,then it gets sold/you get booted out,long before retirement!!

Right final post

Why is it always the poorest section of society that have to make the sacrifices?

You want them to give up their houses to solve the housing crisis?

Not the bankers and tax avoiders with their big houses and holiday homes

All in it together ..like fuck are we

More houses need to be built full stop, there is a basic need for sheler which this country is not meeting for whatever reason. Kids are sleeping in the streets tonight. There ought to be a bloody uprising about the issue but no we have dickheads more concerned about the flowers in countryside than teenagers sloeping under bridges.

hang on usual suspect

I fit in the poorest section to and ok maybe its selfish but when i see one person or elderly couple in a 4 bed house yes i do get annoyed .Maybe I am selfish in wanting somewhere that I can actually get into a bathroom .you try waiting knowing that your looking a t 3-4 years having to get on to your arse then dragging yourself into a bathroom and then having to pull yourself up to the toilet , having to crawl into a shower and sit on the floor of it .Tell me you would not get annoyed

Where would they move to without more investment in social housing?

My friend's mother applied for a 1 bed house with their HA (no council housing stock in the area) 14 years ago. She is still waiting. There is a severe shortage of family homes in the area yet she is not classed as a priority as she is housed. So she sits in a 3 bed house. Also she has never claimed housing benefit so in the 35 years she has been in the house she could have bought it a couple of times over and then sold it and downsized.

Redpanda .That is hard I agree that they should be rehoused tricky if they have no one bedroom places.so in that case she should stay of course.( I am not completley heartless)

Though here one beds do come up more often due to the fact tennants are often elderley .And the council will actually give you £500 per bedroom that you give up if you take a smaller property

For another perspective on this - a very good friend of mine is on the board of a large housing association. They are appalled by these policies, because they say they are going to cost them a fortune.

Apparantly they already have older people biting their hand off to downsize and move into suitable smaller properties, because they're easier to look after and also the rent is cheaper. But the problem is that they don't have anywhere near enough of them, because most of their 1/2 beds are flats, they mainly don't have lifts, and the ground floor ones are already full up with other older people/people with mobility needs.

Also, another example she gave - they have X number of houses suitable for disabled people - the way the proposals are currently set up, they won't be able to use those for anyone who isn't the 'right' family size.

Also, the suggestions about charging X% of a notional 'market rent' - they currently set their rents at a level which keeps arrears to a minimum while comfortably covering costs, they know that if they increase the rents they are going to get lots more arrears, more problems with bad debt etc and it will cost them more. Yet the govt is saying that they will have no choice - unlike a private landlord - to set a rent that is economically efficient for them.

I can't remember all her other complaints but it was a very long list . . .

I take issue with that usual suspect, a number of people have to downsize when they reach pension age, not just the poor. My own parents are doctors, so on fairly healthy incomes, they are early/mid 50s. My father has retired on ill health grounds recently and has funded a locum for a year before that (FWIW he would have been entitled to DLA but chose to carry on working as long as possible, rather than, in his word 'get money for nothing'), my mother will work for around another ten years.

They have already decided that if they see a smaller house the love they'll sell up now, if not then necessity will mean they have to settle when my mother retires. Their pensions will be 'good' but not nearly as much as they earn now but the house will be unaffordable, it will cost too much to heat, to maintain, to replace whatever has broken etc etc. If my mother's mobilty goes or she just gets frailer with age she will find vacuuming, dusting, cleaning hard work. It is a large house. Their pensions may not comfortably a cleaner and they want to travel.

They have accepted for a host of practicalities they will have to sell the house they have raised their family in. The house with their fondest memories. They have worked solidly from being 14/15 years old, in school, university, their jobs. They've poured everything into their house, paid thousands to make it 'home' on things they cannot move with them but that is life. I don't see why it should be any different for council tennants. No single person or couple needs a 3/4 bed family house. If they can afford to pay over the odds (ie top up the rent from housing benefit for a 1 bed) fair play, but if not, well, everyone has to make sacrifices as they age. (and its one thing saying a 75 year old etc will only live another 2-3 years, they might live for 25 more years...)

But most housing associations and local authorities have few one bedroom places that are suitable for elderly people i.e. in a block of flats with a lift. In the city I live the focus has been for many years on buying and maintaining family housing.

So many elderly people are penalised through housing benefit reductions when they have nowhere else to move to.

Also many older people need to live close to someone who helps care for them. For example, where I used to live there was a neighbour who helped 2 other neighbours on the street. She went in every morning to help them dress and in the evening to help them undress. She did their food shopping for them, and other bits of shopping and helped them deal with any official things. I doubt she would have travelled across the city to do this.

IME for the older generation, its not uncommon for neighbours who have known each other for 20, 30 or 40 years to help their disabled or frail neighbours in this way. If this is not taken into account by housing officials who force them to move, then there will be an increased cost for social services. The pensioners I know are poor and live in their state pension so they couldn't pay for someone to help them.

Am pretty new to this site,and i gotta say....am liking usualsuspect!

I am going to enjoy it here!

Hoorah for intelligent forums

Takver

It is the other way here anyone can bid on a adapted house and it goes to the higher bidder .no matter that someone with say 20 points less will need those expensive adaptions done on another house .Am currentley trying to challenge local council on this.

I appreciate it can be hard for older people to move from a house/area that they are familiar with and perhaps have a support network nearby, but what about children whose lives are only just beginning being forced to live in terrible, cramped conditions because of the lack of suitable housing? What chance will they ever have if their start in life is this poor?

Surely if you have had a decent life in a good sized, affordable property it is time to allow someone else in genuine need to have the same opportunity once you no longer need a large property?

The difference is fyrtlemertile ..that at the end of your parents down sizing they will still have an asset.

Many older people have also spent thousands in rent and improvements to their council homes

Council houses are not free as many seem to think they are

"I firmly believe that yes, people should have to move when they no longer need X amount of bedrooms or a certain sized house"

Okay fine! you've all convinced me that it's actually immoral to live in a house which has more rooms than you need. So lets move out all the people who own their own large homes too. After all it's about the morality of taking up space that someone else needs right?