Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Original poster

Social housing and Syrian Refugees

365 replies

Plentymoresharks · 23/12/2015 08:20

Controversial one. A memo has gone out from the local council to local residents, asking whether anyone has a property they can offer for Syrian refugees, housing benefit will be paid as well as a premium and money to hold the property until it is occupied, money for decorating and repairing the property etc.

Aibu to find it ridiculous that basically the council will be housing refugees who have been flown around the world ahead of people already on the waiting list for social housing? Also, there are homeless people who I see every day, living in the park and under a car park bridge but they aren't getting this same help (the memo mentions the social and medical help the refugees will also be given).

OP posts:
fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 23/12/2015 10:56

If people have the right to say that Syrian men let their families drown I have the right to call them a bigot.

No fluffiness here generally.

AnthonyBlanche · 23/12/2015 10:57

ah fanjo you do like to have the last word don't you? I'm off now to get on with preparations for welcoming my extended family for a non-Christian celebration on Christmas day. So feel free to have the last word now as I won't be reading or posting.

GloriaSmellens · 23/12/2015 10:58

And the vast majority of those wanting to help the refugees - including the councils! - did not seem to give a shit about homeless/vulnerable people before either.

This isnt necessarily true actually, and also assumes that sorting out the problem of 'homelessness' just involves ensuring that there is enough housing for all, when actually in many cases it's much more complicated than that

Just off the top of my head, that homeless.guy down in Dover whose picture of him holding the placard about refugees getting priority above him for housing that was doing the rounds on FB, comes to mind. It turned out he had been housed, several times, but unfortunately had lots of issues with drugs etc. and had found himself homeless again.

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 23/12/2015 10:58

Oh goody. Hmm

No I don't actually care about "winning arguments" here these days.

You are so 2014

BreakingDad77 · 23/12/2015 11:00

OP Its disgusting that we are subsidising private landlords who in their next breath will go on about scroungers.....but that probably wan't the point your were making Grin

Aren't there some parts of the country that dont have such high housing pressures, with empty properties?

ghostyslovesheep · 23/12/2015 11:02

I'd happily discuss the issue - but I find people often start from a point of total disinformation and half truths - budgets for supporting homeless people in LA areas and those for supporting refugees are separate - so one is not damaging the other

These people have to go somewhere - their lives have been destroyed

Councils will continue to help the homeless - that hasn't changed

people need to look past refugees and maybe question why this government have decimated central funding to LA's - meaning they have tiny budgets with which to continue to deliver services

Refugees are a drop in the ocean budget wise

BlueJug · 23/12/2015 11:04

All these people saying it is fine all have houses. They are not paying exorbitant rents for substandard housing in a place where they were born.

Easy to be self righteous and oh so virtuous when it is not your kids that suffer. I deal on a weekly basis with people desperate for homes - but if you are local it is basically tough shit.

Schools in that area are vastly over-subscribed. The rich will just send their kids to Hampton or Kingston Grammar or Lady EH - and just berate the poor for being lazy and "racist"

If they said that anyone with a home over three bedrooms had to give up a room or two to the refugees there would soon be a change in attitude. It is hypocritical and quite simply wrong.

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 23/12/2015 11:05

Yes. People start from a point of disinformation and half truths and already resent the refugees..
They arent asking a question so that they can be educated but so that they can just moan about the refugees getting too much.

There isn't really any point in trying to educate these types I find.

Life's too short these days.

Some comments are just totally beyond the pale and there is nothing reasonable to reply to them.

Kikigetty · 23/12/2015 11:05

I agree with you OP. There are plenty of people in this country that need help and should be concentrated on before we take on other desperate people.

I feel there will be some public uproar when refugees arrive (especially here in the north) and they will recieve poor treatment from people for getting priority housing and benefits. Some people do not understand what they are escaping. Around my area if you move counties then you have to have lived there a year before you can get any social housing. One of my friends moved down from another county and then lost his job and house. He had to live in a b&b for 9 months until he could even apply for social housing. He is still there now waiting.

BreakingDad77 · 23/12/2015 11:05

With homeless hostels is the "There are vacancies, people don't take them up due to rules, no pets, curfews etc" - is there any truth in this or is it just Daily Mail type hysteria?

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 23/12/2015 11:06

They should be annoyed about the substandard housing and extortionate rent then. Which is indeed a disgrace. On its own.

Goldenhandshake · 23/12/2015 11:07

element because we cannot fly people in under the guise of international aid and tell them to sleep on a park bench, as a nation we have a duty to try and help our global neighbours when we can, and in this instance, we CAN and SHOULD help a manageable number of them, we are far from being swamped by Syrian refugees.

There are places in the UK that offer shelter to those fleeing domestic violence, and they do have priority points on council waiting lists (it is sad and lamentable social housing is so stretched, but is not something that can immediately be solved). The OP and many others are not taking into account that it is not council housing being allocated to refugees, it is a request for private landlords to help out, for an incentive.

Mental health issues are a complete other matter, there are some people as I said who flat out refuse offers of help and you cannot forcibly make them agree to a tenancy and keep them there, particularly if they are not mentally ill 'enough' to be sectioned, you cannot detain them. Some people's illness will mean they are unable to manage a property, juggle bills and responsibilities, so we cannot simply bump them to the top of a list and then everything's rosy.

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 23/12/2015 11:07

Kiki but do you really think that living in a B and B is comparable to fleeing in a dinghy from being bombed?

AliceScarlett · 23/12/2015 11:07

I don't think there is any right answer. It isn't fair they are refugees and its not fair uk people need more housing. Life's not fair. So what do you do? Refuse entry for the refugees? Take as many as possible? I think the UK are trying to find a middle ground. I'm just glad I'm not the one who has to decide.

OfaFrenchmind2 · 23/12/2015 11:13

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 23/12/2015 11:15

Wouldn't know what you're in a habit of doing since you name change. Easy to post digs about people who don't under a name change. Very cowardly and boring.

OfaFrenchmind2 · 23/12/2015 11:17

Nope, always had the same name, always used it. Does it feel better when you lie?

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 23/12/2015 11:17

At least my point I have repeated is linked to wanting kind treatment of refugees and not purely aimed at making the bitchiest most scathing post possible under a namechange

Samcro · 23/12/2015 11:19

wow how did such a serious subject be come about one poster??
I have found it a good read as I didn't know some of the stuff(both sides)

ElsaAintAsColdAsMe · 23/12/2015 11:19

This thread is depressing.

I fled from my abusive ex with my dc,we left with nothing (although I did take my phone with me) and went to somewhere new.

We were given a place in a refuge, helped with money, eventually got a house, got help getting furniture and carpets etc, and are now settled and more importantly safe.

The fact some think I was entitled to that help and others fleeing worse than an abusive ex aren't entitled to it simply because of where we happen to be born is mind boggling.

BooyakaTurkeyisMassive · 23/12/2015 11:20

Other people have made the point but it's worth reiterating. The refugees who are coming here are coming either directly from Syria or from camps on the borders and are the most vulnerable. The elderly, the disabled, the sick, women who've been sexually tortured.

We're not taking any of the refugees coming from Turkey on boats, so that's a separate issue and it doesn't affect us in the UK at the moment.

Although frankly I've found some of the things said about the UK homeless on this thread misinformed, ignorant and quite frankly disgusting; that it's their own fault or they've chosen to live like that. Just, fuck off.

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 23/12/2015 11:21

Because you chucked in the first grenade and everyone got stuck into me samcro?

Cheers for that. Happy Xmas.

Kikigetty · 23/12/2015 11:21

No it isn't Fanjo but he had to live in the county for a year before being able to apply. Not a different country. A different county to where he was born. Everyone faces difficulties in different ways and it can't be one rule for one person and then a different rule for another. That's when people start to get pissy and will hurl abuse at the refugees, no matter what their situation.

Where will all of the refugees work, especially in London?

LuluJakey1 · 23/12/2015 11:26

Shall we just stop posting on this thread? (Waits flaming from all sides)

elementofsurprise · 23/12/2015 11:26

Golden Thanks for replying in more detail, but you seem to have some strange ideas about people with MH issues not wanting to be housed. Even if there are some people like that - why should the rest suffer and not be offered help? I am a living example of someone who just needed a tenancy, my own place! (It's private too - I just needed someone willing to accept HB too!)

Also, people fleeing war... they will have complex needs - trauma, language and cultural issues. It's not so black and white. I guess I just worry about really stigmatised groups getting even more stigmatised... I've observed a tendency for people to be down on one group even as they trump the rights etc of another, and it bothers me (in another context they'd be speaking up for the other group). I call it "the hierarchy of isms"!

Lulu It's disgusting that people profit from caring for the vulnerable - whilst the carers themselves get paid a pittance. I'd like to open a not-for-profit nursing/care home... I'm serious but as yet it' a vague future dream.