Social housing stigma?

[Icantsleep3am]

I came across a thread here on MN and was struck at vile abuse thrown at the Op regarding her post on her situation in social housing. Assumptions were made (untrue), of lasiness, irresponsibily spewing sprogs around, using the system, being benefit scrounges etc. It made me wonder - why people make these assumptions?
I grew up in a family with a very strong work ethic, only relying on yourself, always striving to have a better life etc. I was ambitious, driven, hard working, had a high flying career in the past, yet the circumstances are that I live in social housing. I always invisaged myself being successful, having own house, financially secure. But an illness from which I nearly died, although I made a complete recovery, few financial setbacks when I lost all savings shook my confidence. Then I met and fell in love with my now husband (who incidentally believed that ownership was bourgeois and against his principles), by the time I recovered from my illness I was just about to pass my childbearing years. So we had children (2) without having time to save up for a house, but according to some posters on the other thread, poor people have no right to have children! And all hope of buying a place flew out of the window again when my husband got diagnosed with cancer (he’s recovered now) and now we are both past the age when we could get a mortgage. We are overcrowded, quite severely but it is a separate issue. So any time I talk about it I feel judged. We don’t abuse the system; both me and my husband work hard; we pay rent - cheaper than private, but nonetheless, and not that cheap; we pay taxes; we don’t claim benefits. So why there is such a shame around the issue of social housing - why everyone thinks I have a lesser right to life than those who own their houses? Why such a patronising attitude?

I grew up in social housing and I think I understand what some folks were saying on that thread. Not that I agree with it, but that I think I know what they were saying. It was really why have more kids if you can't afford them, need bigger and bigger social housing and more and more benefits to take care of the kids.

I think that's what's stigmatised, it's seen as a purposeful abuse of the system. You're clearly in a different boat, as are many others, but I do believe there are some people who abuse the system and just expect to be given.

I grew up with them so I would concur this abuse does occur, but the reason I don't agree as such with the comments, is because everyone has a different life story and different reasons. And I grew up with those folks too,,

Just living perpetually in a council funded property is seen as taking the piss.

The council doesn't fund my LA house. It's the rent I pay that funds it. It also funds local improvement schemes available for LA tenants, private tenants and homeowners like the quarterly large rubbish collections they run for free with the profits they make from rent or the parks and open spaces grants they offer with the profits they make from rents and my rent also goes towards funding the homeowner improvement grant scheme which offers free boilers among other things to homeowners who meet specific criteria.

My rent is subsidising home owners.

I wonder how many of these people looking down on social housing are able to own their home because they or their parents benefited either from buying their council house, or benefited from huge increases in property values.

It gets my goat when people (especially older people!) lecture on how hard they work when most of their wealth is actually down to unearned income. For a lot of us, we have what we have because of luck, not work.

Yes, I also grew up in a council house. As did all my relatives. I didn't know there was any other kind of house until I was half way through primary school!

These days, social housing is scarce and the level of need required before being given help is significantly higher. Inevitably this means more "problem" families being housed together, less social cohesion and even degrees of ghettoization.

This is so true. I grew up in social housing, and until very recently worked in housing support/homelessness. People like my parents (lower middle class, working, no social problems) would never get a council house now, they'd be expected to rent privately, DP's parents the same.

His mum still lives in her council house. They paid rent for over 50 years (she gets housing benefit now) and will have paid for that house several times over; it would have been the same for my parents, who paid full rent to the council for over 40 years before they died.

Where she lives is quiet, the gardens are all well-kept, the neighbours are nice, there are no feral dogs roaming or cars up on bricks, and the only neighbours who cause noise nuisance are in one of the few houses that are privately owned. It's far shabbier where I live, where all the houses are privately owned houses, cost an absurd £400k and everyone's got old cars because their mortgages are so massive!

People like my parents (lower middle class, working, no social problems) would never get a council house now, they'd be expected to rent privately,

Not just lower MC, I'm lower WC, and until needing to flee an abusive relationship and becoming homeless and on DMs sofa, I private rented because I just wouldn't have met the criteria. And where I live there's empty ha places around.
This is the first time I've felt like it's a home, and I'm not just staying in someone else's house - and paying over the odds for that too.

I think the issue isn't social housing per se it is people who complain about being overcrowded and the council isn't facilitating a swop to a larger property for instance - these aren't people with 2 kids, nor those who have taken in relatives children or even blended families. They are people living in a council owned property who act entitled to a bigger property because they don't use birth control. My rant over. There's a good reason to have some housing stock for social rent, but we do get angry sometimes

YANBU OP And excellent point there @Crappmumm

I have worked in social housing and also had/have family living in housing tied to their work. Like many people I have seen property ownership as something I should aspire to, but in many countries this is not the norm.

I didn"t see the previous thread referred to but am shocked if so many people on MN are ignorant of the realities of social housing. It is becoming more difficult for people to qualify for social housing, which results in more people with complex needs being housed there. In the long term this leads to communities of vulnerable people and those who are more able being forced into private rents. This encourages the stigma around social housing.

OP - you write as if you would like to buy a property if you were able (although your DP may not)? You may have already done so but have you checked out ALL the ownership possibilities in your area? I know they vary between areas but there are different Shared Ownership/Shared Equity/Help to Buy schemes around.

Sorry but I came across this thread and wow flirtygirl!! said it all for me today. Someone that can actually can analyse the problem. This I what I think I’ve been trying to explain the whole time. Most ppl are aiming there energy in the wrong direction..

I agree with you OP, the venom some posters have against social housing is awful. They even write off the children from council estates, its disgusting really.

i'd imagine if there was a survey of who lives in the worst conditions owners would come out worst as they have to pay for upkeep & repairs themselves.

And you get to CHOOSE the contractors that come into your home. Tenants dont. They often have to have the same contractors into their home time and time again even if the work is shoddy and dangerous.

And Dispatches last week demonstrated what i have been talking about for YEARS on here The old "tenant didnt allow access" trick. Gas engineers saying they turned up or rang the doorbell when they didnt. At least one HA has kicked off about ring (video) door bells. Likely because it will help to put a stop to this shit.

Yes there needs to be more social housing. But the sector itself needs a big overhaul first. Because many HAs are treating tenants just as badly or even worse than SOME private landlords are.

From a fb group

27 March at 18:33

"Can anyone tell me if I have the right to refuse a manger and his two work men into my house ? Since they started work on my kitchen they have damaged it and damaged my appliances for got to glue my wast pipe I have let them back four times to fix it all and keep messing it up and making it worse"

"the head man sandy is the one saying I need to let the planned team back in or they will get an order to come through my door I told him send anyone else and any other workmen but not them"

" I have lots of photos I’ve had so much hassle from them it’s unbelievable who silicons a new kitchen together he put it in that bad when he tried to straighten it up he had to glue it with silicone what a joke"

"I tried but I got a load of excuses.
G. Saunders & Son Brighton.
They didn't have a clue how to fit a kitchen.
Rooted though all my personal details. Used my tools, used my appliances as work benches. The list is endless & have over 200 photos for the shoddy work & abuse of my property.
Sanctuary couldn't careless. The only time I let them in is carry out the Annual Gas Safety Check. Which I had two of, last year. The February one the boiler needed a new part, as it wouldn't 'fire up'. A part that can easily be obtained 24 hours at the most.
Liberty-takers-Liberty took two weeks, by then the new monthly budget had kicked in.
In December a Sanctuary Employee did the check"

And when you privatise SH and pretend you haven't (HA) it just speeds up the process back to slum landlords, the ones we got rid of with SH 100years ago.
Progress.
We should just get the poorhouse open and have done with it.

I lived in council housing when my dc were born. It wasn’t the easy life people imagine. It was awful. But I was never allowed to say that, I had to be grateful. I am grateful, it just wasn’t nice.

I now rent privately (past 16 years) and will never be able to afford to buy. We are stuck. I get judged by colleagues as I’m the only non home owner.

You can’t win.

YY @TheQueef

speyejoe2.wordpress.com/2019/03/29/english-has-profit-from-social-tenants-in-2018-was-6-33-billion/

6.33 billion.

I live in a HA property OP, I am very proud and chuffed to bits with my lovely little house.

We won't ever have a mortgage. DH has had 2 serious health issues in the last 8 years, and a mortgage would mean he would have to work, plus he is 51 so any mortgage would be over a short term.

We have both been homeowners in the past, dh twice, but circumstances have forced us to sell.

We both work. Dh is a builder, I am the MD of our own construction firm as well as my own self employed business.

Our house is lovely, our neighbours are lovely. We are at the bottom end of a huge new build 'village'.

Anyone wants to judge me can fuck off. We work hard, we take care of our home, we are good neighbours. And even if we didn't or couldn't work, it's absolutely no ones business but ours.

Any time someone comes on Mn and says 'Oh, social class doesn't exist in this country any more, that's old-fashioned -- I've never heard anyone outside of Mn mention it, anyway' I want to point them to threads involving social housing.

people just assume it will never happen to them but anyone can get sick, lose a job, be left by a partner.

@Filibustering Ive already tried that on a class thread It got ignored.

MN is exceptionally good at cheerleading when women leave abusive partners. When the same women end up in social housing living on a pt min wage income the support isn't quite at the same level.

That's very untrue and you do a great disservice to th women on mumsnet by lying like this. What mumsnet is not so supportive of if that women continues to have more more babies, with abusive man after abusive man, and demanding bigger housing with every new child.

Ah well it's not like our local councils are skint so that meagre £6.3 BILLION (s that £6.3000,000,000?) Is better in private hands.
The council would only spend it on poor people.

I grew up in a council house in a nice area where the people looked after their homes and they raised familes and died in those said home.

The stigma is there because of history. It was well known at a certain time that girls would get pregnant young and be giving a council house, that you have more babies and get moved to a bigger house and the tent is cheaper.

Obviously that doesn’t happen know as there is not as much council housing and they are stricter about it too. The bubble however led to the stigma and the type of council tenant it created to which in turn caused the ghettos where even lovely council homes people would turn down. The only people to blame are those that gave it a bad name.

So...................misogyny then.

On aye I forgot it was the Single Mums who fucked it up