getting envious of people in decent social housing, when i have no right to be envious

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i am being a total twat today
even annoying myself

but close to wear we live there are some really realy nice brand new houses being built
30% of these houses are going to be social housing

these houses to but cost in the region of 250k three bed semi

we currently live 10min walk away in a 3 bedroom house

these new ones have been built in a traditional style and are really nice, although the gardens are very small

i have no reason to be envious as we own our house, which is probably worth around 200k and have a morgage of about 100k which we can afford quite comfortably
and i realise when we are older,assuming we live that long,
that we will have an asset, although suppose theres a good chance that could get sold to pay for a care home or whatever

anyway

i suppose this am walking past i was just thinking these people that move in will have lucked out big time

i understand that not all social housing, in fact the vast majority are no where near as nice
and that its a kind of massive lottery who gets what home, you could have one family struggling to get housed anywhere, another family in a mouldy inadequate smelly flat yet another family who virtually hit the jackpot with one of these homes

i don't know why im getting envious about it
perhaps its the bloody tory goverment polluting my mind
perhaps i need some brain bleach and a good lie down

i realise i might stick over this, thats fair enough i can take it

but i really do not want to feel this way and i was really wondering why i do and how to correct it

Plenty of people in social housing work. And the home does not belong to them. It is rented.

people on this thread are saying you have to be in dire straights to even qualify

it seems like a lottery to me
as i know people that are over crowded and others that have been lucky and got really nice homes
although none very local though maybe half an hour away
equally nice area though

Seconded headdesk

People in social housing very often work. They are not all on benefits.

This is the thing I never got about Bob Crow. People used to say "well he earned loadsamoney so he should have moved out". Social housing was never meant as a stop-gap until you could privately rent your house and pay £££££ to landlords for an insecure tenancy. It was meant to be a home for life, and it was for anyone struggling to get a secure home (as Bob Crow was at first). Their future income wasn't a consideration.

It's not a lottery. It's a very complex system of allocations which changes from council to council, within an overarching legal structure.

Watch the housing thing.

You'll soon see it's not a lottery at all. It's a constant fight and struggle.

My severely disabled daughter is having major spinal surgery this year, she will be in icu for weeks under sedation afterwards. She will take months and months of rehabilitation. Living in insecure housing is my main worry at the moment. I so wish I could live in social housing here, somewhere appropriate for her rehabilitation. It's extremely unlikely according to my we because there are just not enough ha houses/bungalows. I can't see how you would resent more being built.

Why are you jealou?s.. yes it's a secure tenancy but you'll have a house you can sell at the end of it, i'll just be handing my keys back to the council. My rent is about 80 quid a month less than what you're paying in a mortgage.

There isn't a shortage all over the country, there isn't here.

" and i totally understand some people can't work due to various reasons "

I do work and live in social housing too. I pay rent and when I move out of here I'll have nothing to show for that rent.

I tell you what, we could swap places if you like. You can come and live in my 'decent social housing' and pay my ever increasing rent and I will come and live in your house and pay the mortgage.

How many years would I have to continue to pay that mortgage? I know the rent will need paying forever. You wouldn't have a lot more to play with after paying my rent than you do now after paying your mortgage.

Oh, DP works full time and I am a full time student nurse, so we are paying our way thank you very much.

If u think about it every council property was once a shiny new build, it must be lovely for the new tenant to be allocated a brand new home but it is not their 'fault' they are the ones chosen to be the first residents of the new house.

As PPs have said you have to meet certain criteria to qualify for a council house and I personally feel lucky not to qualify.

I grew up in a council house and I am very happy that, as a now adult with DH and children of my own, I'm not in the same circumstances or have the same struggles my mum did when we were kids to qualify.

Some people have no choice but to go on the council waiting list and wait a bloody long time too. And sometimes it can be for dreadful reasons as others have mentioned.

This is not aimed at you OP but on Mumsnet there seems to be this idea that council housing is free and something to be jealous of?! And the only people that live in them are undesirable.

We as a family are forever grateful for our childhood home but to get it we were in pretty shitty circumstances.

It was always my ambition to own my own home when I grew up and I am very proud of myself that I now do. I don't begrudge others for being in a new build council house because because I've had to buy my own as I know they will have genuine need.

I live in what was a new build social housing property (I've been here 8 years) - it was adapted as it was built for a wheelchair user and I was so lucky to be able to the one who got it - I was previously living in a village in the middle of nowhere (I don't drive due to my disability) in an unadapted property and had become severely depressed as it mostly made me housebound due to it's location. And I love it.

But my dream has always been to live on the coast. A dream which probably won't ever come true.
You can only get social housing in an area you have a local connection with which for me means only this area. Yes there are schemes where you can swap with someone in a different area but I wouldn't be able to find a suitable property. And in order to get a property adapted there are long waiting lists AND you have to sign a paper saying you understand that if they adapt it for you and you move out before 5 years is up you'll have to pay the cost back. I can't take that risk of moving away from my supportive family and friends and finding I can't manage without their help and then being stuck somewhere for five years.

I can completely understand the OP's POV. We were renting privately before we moved to our current home. We were actually quite lucky because we rented from a relative who happened to be a landlord. The house we rented was fine until we had children. DD1 has SN and as she grew the lack of downstairs toilet, no Central Heating and tiny (20m^2) garden was problematic.

We were assessed by the council who decided that private rent was unrealistic given that we needed to be able to take steps to secure the property to keep DD1 safe and that the house we were in was unsuitable. We were prioritised but told that if we wanted to stay local we'd have a 5-10 year wait for a suitable house.

Thankfully, a house came onto the bidding system that was suitable and somehow, despite coming 3rd in the bidding list, it was allocated to us (well, DD1, really).

It has everything we need - driveway, which means we don't have to park on the road and walk DD1 to the house; large garden, which is great because DD1 can't go anywhere unsupervised; 3 bedrooms (1 of which is so small that a bed only fits along one wall, but still a bedroom) and a dining room.

The house is ours for life now, if we want it. Secure tenancy. I'll be forever grateful.

Having been homeless in a big city (for Scotland) it was quite tough. Here is how it went:

Landlord told us verbally and by phone he was going to kick us out. We applied to the council (me and my mate, who were the tenants)

Council gave me extra priority points and my mate no priority. We were told to wait until landlord served notice and would kick us out. I was working, my mate was on JSA.

We became increasingly scared of the landlord. I was scared to go back to my flat every night.

Landlord posted an incorrect eviction notice. We moved our stuff and waited. Council said they could move me into a temp. homelessness B&B but it would cost me £200 per week. I wasn't on housing benefit although I was on low wages so that was way more than I could pay. We didn't trust the landlord so we fled.

I slept on floors for a while, and in fact where I am now I still sleep on the floor sometimes. My mate slept on floors too until he got a place.

No one offered a big comfy council house to me or my pal with all the benefits you can think of thrown in. I'm still not in permanent accommodation. I don't know when I ever will be, and I am 34.

It's not as easy as you think.

YANBU to be envious and I say this as someone who privately rents a small room for a small fortune in a very average town. I think it is human nature to look at others and wonder "what if?" but you can't let it consume you.

I'm so sorry to hear of the tragic loss of your son too.

I can tell you I did at one point have a good job, nice car, and the mortgage. I can say this was up there with the most unhappy times in my life but people used to tell me how lucky I was but I was very unhappy.

years of private rent and lots of issues later ended up in refuge with DS. I am now in social housing and manged to build my life have a job that pays the bills.

The building you live in does not measure your happiness at all..You can live in a mansion and be very unhappy

I live in a council house now..we have been here 6 months. Our private rented house we were in was a shithole, the landlord wouldn't repair or replace anything, the heating needed doing and we had problems for 2 years with it. The kids were freezing in winter and if we got fought in the rain I had to dry things by a little heater.

Last winter we had lovely gas heating...I think we deserve something good after 10 years of shit

The only family I've known of who were moved on from round here to a new build spent several years with their autistic son sleeping in a storage room of off the kitchen (where the rubbish chute used to be) because there were no houses available to meet the family's needs.

It's not all drug addicts and "bloody foreigners".

It must be difficult when you work and see others will be seemingly given a house for nothing, but its not like that as you well know.
You are in a good position and one day you will own your own home, rather than it belonging to your lender. which will make you feel as though all your hard work has paid off.
Until then, count your blessings and be pleased you don't meet the criteria for social housing.

We're at the bottom of a huge list atm, paying an extortionate amount for a tiny damp shit hole that we can be evicted from at any time with only 2 months notice or have the rent increased if the ll feels like it. I don't begrudge the people in council houses, I just wish there were enough for my family to have one too!

If you'd like a change of mind fast then we're always looking for volunteers in our homelessness services if you live in London.

If I ever get a bit cross about our own personal situation then going into one of our services gives me a massive reality check about how lucky I am.

I have a council flat, I was allocated it as I got pg when I was a teenager and was a single mum after leaving an abusive relationship. I know I'm very fortunate to have it, especially as I'm in London where the rents are 3-4x as much for the same flats on private rents. But, although the area is not as bad as some estates, there are gangs, there's a lot of poverty and the nearest shops are all betting shops/overpriced corner shops/cheap takeaways. It looks unkempt and I'm slightly embarrassed to bring people there, even though I've decorated the inside pretty nicely. The schools also aren't great, and I have no option of moving for a better catchment. We don't have a garden or balcony.

There is some much nicer social housing in nearby boroughs (plush newbuild flats and nice converted Georgian houses) and I feel a similar twinge of envy as I personally know some people who lucked out getting them. It's just the luck of the draw - these people have had unfortunate circumstances like me, but when it came to bidding/allocation those were the properties which came up.

I've been diagnosed with several disabilities now and so has my child, so I'm unlikely to ever be able to own my home, either buying this one or on the open market. I feel grateful that I have this security, and I expect to stay here really for the rest of my life. But I would certainly prefer to be in a position to be able to work and buy a house of my own choice.

social housing is a benefit to not only the tenants, but also the community. Once capital costs have been amortised, they are a valuable source of income for any LA or housing association.

It takes a lot to get social housing now. either you will be on the list for years, sometimes decades, or something really bad will have happened to push you up the list.

Affordable housing, be it social housing or private, should be an absolute priority for any government, and if that means rent control being re introduced, so be it.