What's the Council housing waiting list like in your area?

[MsHopey]

Posting here for traffic.
But I've been reading a lot of different posts on different sites about council housing in people's own areas, and the waiting times are staggering.

In the borough I live in you have to prove you have worked or lived in the borough for 2 years continually before they allow you to join the waiting list.
Houses will normally go to bands 1, 2 or 3. Flats, maisonettes, bedsits of any size rarely even get one bid on them at all. Houses get anywhere from 30 to 110 bids.
There are 7 bands organised through priority. But bands 4 do also regularly get houses.
Bands 1, 2 or 3 can and do get houses within weeks of joining the waiting list.
I live in the Midlands and in a medium town rather than a large city.

I've heard of needing to be in a borough for 10 years before being allowed on a waiting list, I've heard of waiting lists being an estimate of 87 years long.

I'm essentially just really curious what others peoples local areas are like.
I know social housing gets both envied and condemned on here for various reasons, this isn't something I want to happen on this post. I was just wondering about people's experiences.

You can probably look up the stats. 2 years ago, a council had 22,000+ people on its waiting list ! I expect that the figures were higher in London.

Mines on points. I have 97 points. Average 3 bed house or maisonette goes for 230 points. I get 1 point a month.. So a lot of years.
I'm in a 2 bed with 13 y boy and a baby girl. Me and dp. Luckily it's big enough for now.
And I'm not complaining as there's worse off. But what annoys me is my friends dd is living with her partner and baby. In a house he rented for himself and her.. They're playing the system by saying theyre not. Living together and she's at her grandparents being made' homeless. ' so her waiting list is less time

Not too bad here in Northumberland when compared to other places, provided you have a need. Urgent need (e.g., soon to be homeless) gets Priority Band then there's Band 1 (high need), Band 2 (moderate need), Band 3 (low need), and Band 4 (no need). They have a bidding system so you register you interest on up to three properties each week.

There are some less desirable areas, the very rural ones and the very deprived ones, where there are properties always available because no one wants them and if you do want one of those you can have the keys the next day.

DH and I were given Band 1 when DS1 was a baby. We lived in a tiny one bed flat that developed a damp problem when the cavity wall was damaged and the landlord refused to repair it. We had a two bed house within two months.

Our next house we were given Band 2 as our need was moderate (DD and DS sharing a room). Six months later we bid on a three bed house and got it.

That was going to be our last house but we had a query on one of the bedrooms (we wanted to move a wall so needed permission and part of that was checking the room sizes) and it was then decided it was too small to actually be a bedroom so we were overcrowded as our three bed was actually only a two bed. We went back on the list as Band 1.

We took our time to be choosy over which properties we bid on. One came up which was perfect but we were number two on the bidding list so didn't get it then a few months later one came up next door to that one and we did get it, all in all we waited around eight months but that was through our own choosing, if we hadn't been picky we could have successfully bid on one a lot sooner.

Our council is building houses at the moment. Whenever they sell land, they have a portion given over to new build social housing so we have a fair few streets/estates of new build social housing.

I just looked up the stats for mine, I’m in a zone 2 area in London. Apparently there’s 14,000 on the list and last year they housed 7% of people on the list. They even state on the website “the situation is unlikely to improve”. So yes, for most people in my area they will never get a council place as I imagine the 7% were from the very top band so unless you’re in that, you have no chance.

My old Lonon borough apparently regularly housed people after waits of 10-18 years. I assume that was with medium kind of priority.

Down here (west country) second tier priority is about six months average wait, i think.

I can’t find any stats but the list in my area is very low. So low in fact the council invited me to join. It’s banding A-E

It’s extremely rural in some areas with crap public transport. I’ve noticed that even New builds that are going up don’t get bids because they are still quite expensive in rent and no shops in the village or train station. Council actually struggling to fill these properties as they are no good for families in many respects, and you have to pass affordability. What’s the point in a tiny 3 bed house if you can’t afford it or get your DC to school or to a shop

I just saw the same huge old maisonette go back on the list as no one bid. It’s in a rough area of a village but cheap although I imagine it’s not really very nice inside. People in my district have to live here 3 years

In my (small, rural) district there were 1,062 households on the waiting list last December. Of those, 1,036 had been waiting over 5 years, 19 for more than 10 years, and 7 for more than 15 years.

I've no idea what the average household size would be, but that could be 3,000-4,000 people when you include children. To give an idea of scale, the population of the district is around 80,000, so there could as much as 5% of the population are waiting for housing. This is in an affluent part of the south-east.

It is very, very hard to get housed here unless you are actually homeless, or about to become homeless. Homeless families have to spend a long time in temporary accommodation before they get a permanent home. The council has actually taken some sensible steps to prevent families being stuck in B&B: they reserve a few properties from their housing stock for temporary accommodation and lease homes from private sector landlords, which they then use as TA.

Having just left a job where I was supporting people with housing issues, I am sure that the figures will be much higher this year.

I've been on the waiting list for a 3 bed for 5 years with 100-150 points.

We have a 12 year old DS with Autism/anxiety/depression/OCD and a 5 year old DD Sharing a room.

I can only assume there are a lot more people in the area with worse living arrangements.

I’ve only been on the list a few weeks but notice the popular properties get around 6 bids average. Usually bands B-C get the property

I just bid on a new build that isn’t yet built. Middle of nowhere but I have a car and a full time job. There were multiple of these homes and I think I was the only one because the rest went back out to advert. No one has contacted me about my bid though! I am anxious the 3rd room is too small for a teenager but won’t be able to find out if there are no plans yet and it’s not built!

I can’t afford to get a mortgage and live in a high rent area in the East. I have 2 teens 14 and 16 and one teen has to sleep in a reception room. I have no proper heating and my LL doesn’t do repairs. I can’t leave as rent is so expensive - much more than housing association. I told them I wanted shared ownership but have no deposit so this scheme is ‘affordable rent’ which lets you save up

So can you see everyone’s bids?

NSW in Australia - about 60,000 on the waiting list. About 7.5mil people in the state. Most areas are waiting at least 5-10 years, and metropolitan ones are 10+ years (they stop counting after 10, it could be 87 for all I know). There's not enough social housing for even the most vulnerable people, let alone minimum wage earners and key workers.

Yeah I can see bids on what I bid on
They also put a feedback report out about what was allocated and how many bids it got

I am not essentially desperate for housing - they called me! But I am in that category of stuck with a rogue landlord, single parent in crap accommodation and I would like to be able to have something secure and actually be able to get shared ownership, I don’t want to prevent a family in need from getting housed so I do not bid on the council owned stock only housing association (double the rent)

So, I live in an outer London Borough. From the published information on their website, band 1a priority applicants waited for under a year for sheltered or 1 bed accommodation, three years for two bed and up to two years for three and four bed - but the wait times went up with the lower priority applicants and the longest wait time for one of them was 18 years. I don't know if I'm surprised how short the priority applicant wait times are or how long some people had to wait...

The waiting list is deceptive sometimes.
Lots of people register and stay on the register to build up waiting time.
My LA let 1/3 to the waiting list and 2/3 to needs based priority.
If you want a property in the leafy side of town you still need to be eligible for the house plus you have competition from upgrading tenants.

In my area when you bid you can see how many people are above you, but not below.
It'll just be like:
"If you bid on this property you will be at position X".
After each weekly cycle you can see the results, how many people bid, which band it went to, and how long they had been on the waiting list.
The other closest boroughs to me don't publish their results or at least not to people who aren't on their waiting lists.

In my area band 1 beats band 2, band 2 beats band 3 and so on.
But if 2 people from the same band bid priority will go to the person who has been on the waiting list longer.

Where we were down in Kent (medium sized town) the wait was about 3.5 years. And you had to have lived there for 3 years AND have family connections to the area. The family member in that area must have lived there for at least 10 years. I feel sorry for the people who don’t have family connections but need to be in an area for work. Seems very backwards to me.

When I was actually made homeless I wasn’t allowed to join the list of where I moved cross county to live with my mum. I moved the DC school to New county too but none of this qualified me, so I found the property I am in now for bargain basement rent (which I now know why that is!) and so I have spent 10 years not on any list at all, but can’t get out of my situation

Lots of people register and stay on the register to build up waiting time.

How do you mean? I thought that’s what a waiting list WAS

She means they are not actively bidding while they wait

In my area when you bid you can see how many people are above you, but not below.
It'll just be like:
"If you bid on this property you will be at position X".

Ah, I see. Do you have to bid every week? I bet it makes you edgy.

There is no open waiting list in my London borough. In 2012 they also made a new rule that applicants must have lived in the borough for 2 years (which they have subsequently upped to 5 years). This saw a drop from 16,000 to just 850.

There are lots of other criteria that people must meet which will dictate what band they are put into.

Around here, supposedly it's a long wait.

However I know of two people recently who have been given new properties pretty easily, literally within months of "applying". One was already in a two bed HA house, had a third child and before the child was 1, was given a three bedroom house. (which I don't agree with as they chose to have the third child knowing they didn't have room but whatever!)

The other is currently living in a two bedroom flat but wanted a garden, is moving to a brand new two bedroom house in the new year.

So, I am not sure I believe the HA/Council when they say there is a housing wait list/too much demand

She means they are not actively bidding while they wait

Because there’s no point when you're low priority?

None of these systems seem great, but I only half understand so maybe I'm missing something.

Where I live now is fine. They even have a “council homes available now” page where anyone can go on there and ask to view properties and sign for them. Literally anyone, no wait required. About 2-4 properties a month go up like this.
However just 20 miles away in the nearest city it took them 11 years to house my (medium high priority) mother.