To say there is a stigma attached to social housing?

[longwayoff]

Yes there is and its come about through the pretty much wholesale flogging off of social housing stock. Can Mrs May fix it as ago she says she will? Or is this simply early electioneering?

I’d kill for a secure tenancy in a council house where I could paint, not be scared of losing my deposit, not worry about the black mound in my flat or the fact that I’m in my 3rd property since last December and I don’t know if I will be allowed to stay in here after my 6 month tenancy is up. I would love a CH no stigma here!

Where I live council houses are scarce and most former council houses are privately owned. It costs £280,000 for a 3 bed council house. No one turns their nose up at them.

Penis you do realize there are plenty of HA places with black mould right?

I work in social housing. Very desirable properties in great locations are popping up everywhere and it is so much harder to identify which are SH houses now. Stigma is there but I'm noticing a decrease in that.

YeTalkShiteHen Wed 19-Sep-18 15:23:41

"There absolutely is. You only have to read the threads on here where someone is asking for advice about SH and the awful slating they get"

EXACTLY!

Yes, as a former leaseholder in one. But it was a stigma that reflected in a 30% lower asking price than the neighbouring house for a much larger property, so I went ahead and bought.

I now personally feel a kind of stigma (not the right word, but anyway) against that particular block - very regular low-level ASB, smell of weed at all hours from some flats, wee in the lift, all sorts like that. Someone will be along shortly to say that they had the same in an exclusive private development, but I haven't in this area. I don't regret buying my flat, but I understand the negative associations.

There absolutely is, but this isn't helped by people who need SH not being able to get it (as in, younger professionals etc who want to save to buy but can't because of private rents) because they aren't on the right benefits. This then breeds resentment and reinforces the negativity that SH tenants are tarred with.

Many SH providers however are making a real effort to change this.

Society in general doesn't help the situation either with the ever growing wealth divisions and the shocking anti social behaviour that police can't seem to get a handle on - and I'm speaking for the area I live in here, it's horrendous in some of the less affluent areas of town but there is literally nothing for kids over about 6 to do which contributes to the problem. Areas are run down, there isn't the money to repair damage so people judge those who live there.

It's a sad state, I grew up in a council owned house on a council estate and was never aware of this stigma until much later in life and now I work in the SH sector and my perception has changed again.

We had a lovely cul-de-sac in our village, all privately owned. A few houses on the rd leading to it were/are council. A HA decided to put in for pp for a small amount of houses at the end of the cul-de-sac. The owners of the privately owned houses went bat shit! Screaming mad about it, because it would be social housing. Fast forward a couple of years, I was lucky enough to get one of the new build SH houses. The whole place is pretty much immaculate, we all keep our houses looking lovely, with flowers out front etc. We all get on with existing and new residents. So, yes, it does have a bad reputation and it is not always deserved.

I lived on a council estate in a flat and then I lived in a council house up until 4 years ago but on a road
Mixed in with normal housing

You would not pay me to live on and Estate
Again never ever it was a fucking nightmare people with the kids out all fucking hours

Mopeds no helmets
Drugs being delt my two neighbors fighting in the green one night with no shoes on

The stigma it’s righly earned i am afraid I also don’t blame private landlords not wanting to rent people on HB

Stigma - absolutely
Selling off causing shortages isn't true though.
The refusal to maintain social housing by rebuilding and restocking is the cause of the shortage.

Put simply some people don't value what social housing is (politically) and are happy for it to become low income housing so there is no will to invest in it.

I don’t think it’s council housing

It’s council estates that are the issue my experience so scarred me I wouldn’t even move to a new build we’re 💯 of the houses are owned wouldn’t risk it

I actually had a group of women turn their backs on me and completely shut down our conversation at a baby group when they found out I lived in the housing association houses in the village.
There is definitely a stigma where we live.
Quite frustrating to be spoken to like scum when me and DH both work full time and don’t cause any trouble !

Reggie24

Sadly the fuckwits give eveyone a bad name and I am afraid their are more fuckwits thandecents

Of course there's a stigma.

In some places it's deserved, in some it's not. Unfortunately bad apples make news, all the hard working people keeping their head down don't. A lot of people's only experience of social housing is through TV.

I am in SH and only by sheer luck. Found out I was pregnant whilst living in a private 1 bed house that was £1000 pcm. I was searching rightmove and came across a 2 bed flat on a new build for less than half the cost pcm. Sounded to good to be true but I contacted the company. Turns out it was SH - stock they couldn't get rid of so had to advertise it on rightmove! Conditions of the contract was both partners needed to be working, so no benefit claims in sight. The neighbours are amazing, the location is beautiful and with an 11month old at home we have been able to save a deposit for a home of our own. We couldn't have done this in the private renting market. We are so thankful for the SH and how it has improved our quality of life and our future.

if when people were allowed to buy council houses the councils had the full sum & had been allowed to invest it into new social housing things would be different. As said else where the only people these days who are able to get social housing are those with the most issues & they are than concentrated into smaller & smaller areas with decreasing social support & surprise, surprise, there are problems - no family support, no other support either -

Yes there is. Unfortunately I've had experience of why. I bought my first flat on a new build estate, the block next door was social housing. Four flats owned in our block, twelve SH next door, communal parking area (allocated) bin sheds etc. Next door was a nightmare, blaring music, dirty nappies thrown out of windows, screaming, shouting, abusive drunk partner of woman on the top floor always carrying his bag of Stella cans, kicked the main door in twice, kids would kick balls at cars and broke the fence, woken in the night by police thinking they could get into the attached block next door through our entrance at no one would let them in next door, dogs in flats dhitting all over the communal areas, someone growing cannabis in the loft space. The private owners got billed for the extra 'maintenance', social housing tenants didn't. There was one really nice woman, a nurse with a young son on the ground floor. It's her I felt for the most we could sell up and move away and did, she had fewer options. Social housing needs to be there, but there should be more accountability for the tenants, that woman and her son are the kind of people who deserve that kind of support and respect their living environment and neighbours. If you behave like an anti social yob you should be evicted.

mumsastudent

Nope it wouldn’t be they just build more sink estates

Doing the same thing hoping to get a different result trapping mostly uneducated low income people in one area with a high now one wants to teach school and a doctors on the edge that no one wants to work on it will not help

You need to mix in social housing with mortgaged houses

That’s the only way estates decked into no go areas

MrsStrowman

Their is now people get put on a year let to start to see how they behave the issues issue many of these families have kids usually a fair few and it’s diffc because you end up just moving the issue

I used to live in a lovely, quiet street on a small council estate where 34 out of 36 houses had been sold. I lived in one of the 2 houses which hadn't. Despite working full-time as a teacher, driving a decent car, keeping my garden nice, having well-mannered/nice children and being a quiet neighbour, I was frequently talked down to/pitied by neighbours. They honestly talked to me like I was some kind of poverty case, and beneath them. The majority of residents in my street were retired, and had beenthere since the houses were built, raising their families there. They'd all bought their council houses for just over £10,000 under Thatcher. Houses then rose in value to over £200,000. On my teacher's salary, they were way out of my reach. Nevertheless, I loved my house, felt secure in it and lived there for 16 years.

There is.

I live on a new build estate with a mix of private houses, shared ownership and social housing. We live across from some terraced houses that are both social and shared ownership houses (have no idea which ones are which and don’t care).

We had our house up for sale (due to change in circumstances we’re able to stay and have taken it off the market - yay!) but while it was for sale the few viewings we had said that the social housing put them off. Daft because we’ve never had any issues and we have lovely neighbours.

BusySittingDown how did the people viewing know it was social housing opposite?
We have a new estate nearby which I believe is party social housing. I have no idea which houses are which, why would I?

Well, not particularly where I am, it's quite normal in Scotland. I've lived in and worked in social housing and we came across the full gamut of people. After all, the First Minister and probably most of the MSPs grew up in social housing. Loads are being built, and social housing can no longer be bought, by tenants or anyone else.

My LA is both building their own, training many apprentices into the bargain, and having developers provide a certain number of social houses - identical - in any new development. In my village, there's a couple of streets of HA social and middle-rent properties being built at the moment, right across the road from a brand new couple of private streets and, frankly, the HA looks nicer and better built... The occupiers are likely to be pretty similar too.

Yes, there are certain areas over the LA with problems which is not surprising given the extreme levels of poverty which have got worse over the Tories' omnishambles, but the LA is pretty tough on anti-social behaviour, given that it made history by getting an ASBO to bar an owner-occupier from their property due to ASB.

I will always be grateful to the LA for being rehoused as homeless after a private tenant rendered my owned one bedroom flat uninhabitable (according to Environmental Health and my insurance) and the shyster landlord refused to accept responsibility. It took two years before my insurance finally gave up and repaired it with their own funds, by which time i had been living in a two-bedroom flat for over a year. I had been given an allowance for decorating and, during the three years I was there, I had new heating, a new kitchen (which I got to choose), external and loft insulation, a shower installed over the bath, and replastering of sitting room, stairs and hall after my removal of wallpaper showed the walls to need it. All free. It was two streets away from my own flat, in a much quieter area and with more 'respectable' tenants than the private lets I was surrounded by in my own flat who were always being raided for drugs, setting fire to things and leaving rubbish lying around. The tenants were in falling-apart private lets because the LA refused to rent to them because of their bad behaviour.

There IS a stigma and unfortunately it only takes one or two anti-social families to give an entire area an awful reputation.

I wish the Councils who have these dreadful tenants had more powers to get them evicted much much sooner.

" Conditions of the contract was both partners needed to be working, so no benefit claims in sight."

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