How to get a council house - definition of entitled?

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Just watching that show on channel four. Yes, I know, I shouldn't watch it but need some rubbish tv. Anyway, that woman Marilyn - really, why would she go on tv when she is obviously being so unreasonable. She has been offered a place to live but nothing is good enough for her. I know she is not representative of most people but in a minority. But annoying nonetheless.

I was buying a place a while ago. I quickly realised I couldn't afford the perfect house in the perfect location. So I ended up buing a really shitty house that ticked a few boxes because that's all I could afford. And I am very grateful.

A girl at school was one of 6. they didn't have much. An interesting outcome of that is she has 12 kids.

I still don't see why people are reluctant to stay put and not accept a better life for themselves and their children. London property is unaffordable to most people now.

I've reluctantly had to relocate numerous times for work, so I am willing to do it. BUT I have a major problem with the idea of cordoning off any city for the uber-rich. Telling those earning the average wage (because even average, let alone low, wages won't keep you in London in any decent accommodation) to just evacuate and let the rich carry on without you is actually quite a disturbing idea to me. Where will that end?

I'm not sure why/how moving somewhere else = better life for themselves and their children.

Are they going to be moved to some Utopian paradise with decent homes and full employment that has somehow evaded my attention?

you're poor so you're allowed no agency over where you live. We're going to move you to Stoke where you have as few employment chances as you do here so can't even afford to visit family.

I don't like cordoning off certain cities for the rich either (and I don't think the rich would like it either cause who'll wait on them?).

HOWEVER dh and I are both from the south east and left (independently) as young adults cause we couldn't afford to live there. This was 20 years ago. It's nothing new, and it doesn't by any means just affect those living in council accommodation. There is no automatic right to live in the area you were raised and where your family are for anyone.

To a certain extent council's should provide more housing but the south-east is already massively over-populated and you can't concrete over every square inch of it to provide homes (subsidised or otherwise) for everyone who wants to live there. Perhaps if the country's wealth was spread a bit more evenly people would be happier about the prospect of moving.

And I do think programmes highlighting these types of issues should be made.

I agree Barbarian I'm from the West Country and would love to move back there, but there is no way I could begin to afford a house in my home village because it's full of people from London now.

Not that I'm saying people should be forced to move, but some of us have no choice.

The pp who mentioned poor ppl having no agency over their lives hit the nail on the head.

I think there's a big difference between choosing to move away to take up career/educational opportunities and being forced into it. It's a hugely frightening prospect, especially when you're already in the unenviable and often humiliating position of traipsing up to join the endless queue at the council offices in order to beg the housing officer for a home. The housing dept of my local council employs a number of security guards and for good reason -its an awful, intimidating place to wait and I dont envy anyone that has to do it and when youre waiting for council accommodation you do it a lot.

I live in an outer London borough and I don't suppose the inner London ones are any better.

However, moving out of borough isnt anything new. Councils have always relocated ppl to houses outside of the borough. I know pensioners who were moved from inner to outer London boroughs when they were starting out. There were happy to leave as they were moving to start new lives, in new houses with actual gardens with space for their families to grow. Theres whole estates in towns just outside London which were built almost entirely to take the overspill from outer London. I think a big difference is that relocation was once sold as moving for a better life in a nicer area with more opportunities and for the most part that was probably true. That just isn't true anymore. People are moving from one shitty, damp flat to another and losing family/friends/school/work to boot.

So if you are lucky enoughto be in social houses you are unable to have more children as you are housed according to your needs. In that case I would never have been born. Yes, I am 1 of 7 and grew up in a council house but my parents always worked.

If Marilyn was just being hyper-picky and entitled then I do think she was totally unreasonable to have turned down 3 properties and then say she should be given what she wants. But like others have said, I suspect she has MH or other difficulties that make it hard for her to make the best choices or to compromise. Knowing the scarcity of housing, to not even go to a viewing, doesn't make sense.

Steve did seem so vulnerable. I agree that the major problem with his situation was that few private landlords will accept people on HB, which is just wrong.

People should be able to stay where their roots are, but when demand is so high and rationing of properties is so tight, I don't think it is feasible any more. I lived in a lovely house before my divorce. I was homeless afterwards and am now in a 1 bed HA flat in a totally different area to where I lived before. It's not where I'd choose to live, but have had to accept if I can't afford private rental properties then sadly, I don't get to have the choices I'd like to have.

Also think that if you can't afford a huge family then you may have to accept that you're going to have to have a smaller one. It's sad but it's a decision that people are increasingly having to make.

I agree that the major problem with his situation was that few private landlords will accept people on HB, which is just wrong.

This is a huge problem, and I find it incredibly frustrating when it's something that could be improved massively just by changing legislation. It doesn't have to cost loads of money that the government doesn't have. But at the moment private landlords are reluctant to accept housing benefit because they struggle to get insurance at all, or they have to pay significantly more expensive premiums. The insurance wouldn't be so expensive or hard to get if councils didn't advise tenants to stay in accommodation until they are evicted by bailiffs, sometimes months after they have last paid rent. If they helped people that genuinely needed help as soon as their tenancy ended instead of forcing landlords to go through the hassle and cost of eviction, then landlords wouldn't be so reluctant to take HB claimants, and there would be more housing available for them.

But it goes round in a viscous circle.

I had a thread about it a little while ago, it massively pisses me off as a landlord who would happily take HB claimants if it wasn't going to cost me so much extra in time, money and risk. Councils could remove the barriers and solve the problem for tenants and landlords alike.

How are the council meant to magic up 'help' for people?

It's a bigger problem than forcing mortgage lenders or landlords to take HB claimants although that would be a start. We need more council housing. We need more housing for people to buy and occupy themselves.

It's not the councils that make major housing policies that result in the situation we have now.

It is a bigger problem than forcing mortgage lenders or landlords to take HB claimants, but it would fix the problem for enough individuals that it would be well worth doing IMO.

I was reading Buggerlugs!