to think its a disgrace that Cameron is going to stop lifetime council tenancies

[sparklesandglitterxx]

and think that that is NOT the solution to the housing crisis?

the solution as far as i can see it is, lots and lots more council houses need to be built, regulation in private renting needs to be improved, and GENUINELY affordable houses to buy for those on low wages that wish to or are able to buy

fed up of seeing the great things about Britain being chipped away. Why punish renters? The whole Tory attitude towards council housing being a last resort for the destitute disgusts me. council housing needs to be brought back to what it was originally meant for...which is a decent secure home for anyone who wants one. i live on a council estate which is a mix of council, HA and bought. People stay here, they build lives here, generally it is a lovely community. i have never been happier or more settled anywhere i have lived, I have done well in my life and been able to have a big family. my children are happy and thriving at school and have lots of friends. My point is if these changes go through, they will end up DESTROYING communities like ours and so many others. The Tories just seem to want everyone either paying their landlord mates every penny they earn or pushing up house prices by buying. But not everyone wants to buy, and more importantly not everyone CAN buy, (I have friends on good money who are still priced out the market) and hardly anyone would actually CHOOSE to be in insecure, expensive private rented !! I also think that if more people are in secure housing, it will help peoples mental health (hence cutting costs in mental health services), it will improve childrens chances in life, as they wont have to keep moving schools and away from friends etc, it will encourage people to better themselves, it will cut the HB bill, and also with people spending less on their rent they will have more to spend in the economy, thus boosting it!

I also suspect it wont end here....while it will be for new tenants only to start with, i would imagine it will end up being everyone in council / HA

Roberta, there are thousands of families without social housing support that every year have to home homes, change schools and loose friends. Is it "fair" on those children, to have to be uprooted, just because their parents work?

no one is saying that are they? (apologies if missed anything where someone has) its very unfair! of course it is, and as I said in my op that needs sorting too

oh and people in council homes "work" too - I work, i own my own business and pay full rent and ctax. and have done for years other than a small period of time when my dc were tiny.

Reducing the size of the population would ease the housing crisis.

Sir - we make choices as to our jobs, studies, careers, number of children, location, but then expect the government to deal with the housing consequences.

Sure there are people in genuine need, but a lot of it is self-made helplessness.

Good, why should they be. They stop self reliance. People just expect a bigger house when they increase their family or live on benefits as the rent is fully paid. Then they declare their children homeless at 18 and the cycle repeats.

They should be short term to help families in need with the expectation that they are expected to improve their lot in life.

People without them manage.

We expect the Govt to intervene in all of these things too though Essential - whether through H&S regs, employment law, access to education for our children, and so on...

I completely disagree with your claim that a lot of it is self-made helplessness. Access to good quality, affordable housing with secure tenancy is key to so many other things, but the various Govts have let this slide.

Caveat - secure tenancy does not mean lifetime and irrespective of income though, imo.

For those who think that pensioners arent being affected take a look at this.

speye.wordpress.com/2015/12/14/tories-kill-sheltered-housing-landlords-dont-even-notice/

"Market rent" isn't a real concept either - it's what some greedy, selfish landlords can gouge out of their tenants.

not it's not. market rent is whatever you can get someone to pay for your place. that's a real thing. You set the rate, and see if there are any takers. if there are none, it's too high. if there is a queue around the block, it's too low.

So, what's "fair rent"? And, given that fair rent is almost always going to be below market rent, how do you "fairly" choose who to let to?

agree with that as well. shelter = essential human need...to profit from it is immoral IMO

food is arguably more essential than shelter. So, every food stand is immoral? they are profiting from a human need!

By concept, I mean that we allow what are extortionate rents by many standards for an absolutely essential commodity to be just explained away as the market rate rather than vilifying landlords who buy up available property to artificially skew the "market" to their own advantage.

They can only do that in a housing shortage. They can't do it otherwise. Housing will make rents come down, not stringing up landlords from trees.

I don't deny that shelter is an essential human need sparkles. Who would? Food is essential too, right? Yet most of us pay a market rate for food on a regular basis

Yeah you have a point there... however the "market rate" cost of food has not been allowed to spiral so much that a lot of working people need government money to top up their food bill, like so many need HB to meet their rent. Food bills are still affordable for most, your weekly asda bill is not disproportionate to average earnings in the way that rent generally is

Housing will make rents come down, not stringing up landlords from trees

agreed redstrawberry

We expect the Govt to intervene in all of these things too though Essential - whether through H&S regs, employment law, access to education for our children, and so on...

Sure SirChenjin - so, having benefited from gov't intervention in most aspects of our lives and upbringings, and having been exposed to opportunities for education, development, fair employment conditions... why don't we accept that these same people have the wherewithal to house themselves in a manner that fits the decisions they've made? If not, where is it appropriate to draw the line past which government is not expected to intervene?

At the moment, these people might make the (economically sensible) decision to rely on existing housing policy to sub their choices - hence self-made helplessness - but that really doesn't mean that the consequences of their decisions fall to government.

As I said earlier, I think Teacher had it spot on - when someone is in genuine need of short to medium term help - fine. Reviewing tenancies at intervals is a step in the right direction.

Lots of worrying preconceptions here about the type of people who need / use social housing I expected nothing less

I clear £2k per month, private rent for a 2 bedroom house in my borough is £300pw and childcare is £500pw....do you see where this is going? I simply don't earn enough. I happen to live in an expensive borough but it's where I was born, it's where my job and my family and my kids school is.

I qualify legitimately for social housing, I have a fixed term tenancy but unless I suddenly find a job where my salary doubles I am never going to be in a position to buy or even rent privately. My HA offers the right to buy.... properties of my size on my road go for upwards of £700k so It's not something I am ever going to take advantage of.

Yes there are options, I could move somewhere housing is more affordable but then I don't command the same salary so the problem is still there?

I went to university, I have worked since I was 21 and I have never claimed any benefit other than child benefit
My rent isn't free or even negligible but granted it's not market rent either.

It's obvious Hummus - these are things which are provided by the Govt, or they are made available through Govt intervention. Access to housing has been increasing taken out of Govt control (for different reasons) and placed more and more in the hands of private ownership, with fewer benefits to tenants. The 2 are not comparable.

why don't we accept that these same people have the wherewithal to house themselves in a manner that fits the decisions they've made?

People who struggle to find affordable and secure housing don't actually choose that situation - you do understand that, don't you?

People who struggle to find affordable and secure housing don't actually choose that situation - you do understand that, don't you?

no sirchenjin some people don't and probably never will

Yeah you have a point there... however the "market rate" cost of food has not been allowed to spiral so much that a lot of working people need government money to top up their food bill, like so many need HB to meet their rent. Food bills are still affordable for most, your weekly asda bill is not disproportionate to average earnings in the way that rent generally is

HB seems to distort the market. Employers can get away with paying below-par salaries, because it'll be made up by HB (and other benefits). Landlords can over-charge for rent, knowing that HB will meet it. HB is, to my mind, part of the problem.

The broader problem of property prices has to do with a lack of supply. Looking at the reasons (this BBC article provides a neutral enough summary) , much less gov't intervention - into planning/zoning restrictions, into HA restrictions, into restrictions on lending to small (building) businesses, into benefits, again, to incentivise people to take on the relevant trades - would have a positive effect.

Also - Asda? Moi?

19Lottie82 - Where is the money going to come home for a home for "anyone who wants one"?

The government can find the money to pay £25 billion in housing benefit to private landlords, so they do have the money. Obviously it is more important to make the rich richer than to give genuine voters some housing security.

The differance being PlumpFiction that i wont get kicked out of my council house just because the landlord wants to sell of course i could rent privatley but why would i want the uncertainty all i,m saying is that council housing where i live is not subsidised .

"Market rent" isn't a real concept either - it's what some greedy, selfish landlords can gouge out of their tenants.

No, "market rent" is a real concept in economics, "fair rent" is the make-believe concept for people who want to deny reality. In theory "market rent" is the rent (or relatively narrow range of rents) that will result in exactly one person being matched to that property. Any higher, that person drops out, any lower and you have more than one person who wants that property. If you are not going to give it to the highest bidder, you then have to make some sort of political/non-financial decision to favour one person at the expense of another. Which is what happens with social housing: where the rent is cheaper than a market rent, people who are no longer poor will want to hold on to their subsidised house, preventing people who are currently poor from having the subsidised house.*

(*The article I linked to up-thread shows that some social tenants are being charged full-market rent now. Actually I think all should be charged full market-rent, with poor people getting more housing benefit to pay the extra. This wouldn't cost the state any more, as it's just more money going around in a circle, but the subsidy would be less hidden.)

Also according to shelter and i,m sorry i cant do links [but if you google who is eligiable for social housing it should come up] 'you are usually able to apply for social housing if you are a british citizen or an immigrant with the right to reside in the uk with no limitations.wether thats right or not i have no idea but thats what shelter says.

People who struggle to find affordable and secure housing don't actually choose that situation - you do understand that, don't you?

We just fundamentally disagree which is what the internet is for. People make choices throughout their lives, rather than waking up one day to find that housing is unaffordable or insecure. If (having benefited from all those government interventions) one chooses an insecure or poorly paid job, chooses to have children when that would mean financial reliance on the state, that is a choice.

I don't want to refer to individual posters as it can come across as an attach, but even in the examples given on this thread, there are some glaring instances of "having" to remain in council housing that are simply examples of individuals availing themselves of assistance which should not, in my opinion, be available to people indefinitely. Why wouldn't they? Doesn't mean that the gov't has to provide the same, for all, indefinitely.

As before - in the short to medium term, in cases of need - absolutely. It's in all our interests that people are helped to stand on their own two feet. More than that - uh uh.

So, in short, no, in a lot of cases I don't agree that people who struggle to find affordable and secure housing don't actually choose that situation. As I said when I first posted to this effect, I understand that this makes me a neo-Con wanker worthy of lots of skeptical looks. So be it. I'd no more expect the state to house me than I'd expect it to wipe my bum.

I've just lolled at your user name ChatShit grin..You are not my DS are you.

LOL usual

no just I am from lestah innit

19Lottie82 - Where is the money going to come home for a home for "anyone who wants one"? ....The government can find the money to pay £25 billion in housing benefit to private landlords, so they do have the money. Obviously it is more important to make the rich richer than to give genuine voters some housing security.

^^yep exactly

and magic up billions for dropping bombs on Syria, whole other conversation

*attack, not attach