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?

Interesting thread .... two of my BFFs and my husband grew up in social housing. When I was looking for a house I was happy to look at excouncil because you got more for your money. All three of them point blank refused to live on an excouncil estate and chose a smaller private property instead. When I asked them they all said they wouldn't choose to ever live in social housing if they had a choice. They've explained some of the issues they grew up around and presumably their experience is why many don't want to live in social housing

@whateverhappenstheremore

It largely depends on the area. I know some social housing that is lovely. Some look like private homes, on nice estates (newish - like 21st century, and older like 70's and 80's, and even pre war homes,) and some social housing that is minging (big sink estate like the chatsworth estate on 'Shameless.')

Thing is, I also know people who have bought their house/have a mortgage, and the area they live in is awful. 100s of houses all rammed together with no front garden, no driveway, no garage, a tiny back garden, and walls like tissue paper where you can hear the next door neighbours farting, coughing, yawning, flushing the loo, chatting and laughing, and shagging.

On some of these 'private' estates, one in six or seven homes, are let out to social housing tenants (or are private let.) Some of the people who are buying have paid £350K to £400K for the privilege of living in a shitbox with poor soundproofing, next to people renting!

Renting social housing doesn't mean you live in a shithole/rough area, and buying a property doesn't guarantee you will live in a great place in a lovely area!

@littledoll33

I guess my experience is different, most of my friends are coming to the end of their mortgages in the next few years (they are almost 50yrs old) and they are only paying £350-500pm, I'm paying £600pm. So over the 20 odd years I've been here I've paid approx £120k in rent. My rent is going to keep going up. I do expect to pay rent when I retire as i'll have a work pension as well as state pension so I will be over the threshold for housing benefit.

There were a lot of council houses (social housing) built post war by the Labour governments who instigated the NHS. It was a different model of social housing based on very socialist ideals. The housing was intended for everyone, not just poor, often built around the idea of creating communities. The idea of 'social', intended for everyone, housing is long gone.
One of the problems is that some social housing estates are sometimes occupied by people with such chaotic lives that they make other residents lives miserable by just living next door to them. There is a thread running at the moment that describes this situation. The council knows that even if they threaten to evict awful tenants they have to rehouse them elsewhere.
I think there would not be a stigma if social housing had mixed occupancy. I think that is the intention of Housing Associations. It is important to have a wide range of people from different backgrounds living side by side. As soon as social housing looks tatty and some occupants are loud and aggressive then some people start to judge. There needs to be a new approach to social housing with consequences for the tenants who make life difficult for neighbours. Social housing needs to provide homes for teachers and nurses and other professions who fulfil essential roles in our lives. Tenants who are abusive, racist, homophobic etc need to be clearly warned about consequences and moved away if they break the rules.
Social housing is a lovely idea but it needs to be properly managed if it is to be stigma free.

@mrsmuddlepies

This is very true. One of the moves I had to make was due to neighbours like that. Threatened to set fire to my house at 3am, after kicking the door in - nothing to do with me, it was my neighbour that owed them drug money, they had the wrong house. And just got told to 'keep my fucking mouth shut if I knew what was good for me' 🤨 another was a car sped up, three guys jumped out, stormed into the house opposite, dragged someone out and gave them a kicking in the street. DD and I were just leaving to go out, and she was terrified. A few other neighbours were out and we all got warned to 'phone the police and see what happened'
That was without the parties every night, shouting, music, fighting, broken windows etc.
I was private rent at the time, and took me a year to get out, LL was exceptionally pissed off and said 'Well how am I meant to rent it to anyone else with all that going on?' and had to go to the deposit scheme for my deposit back. Wasn't willing to step in and add weight to the complaints to the council and police though.
They were also private rent, from an LL who didn't care because the Hb got paid directly to him, so he got his rent and they were still there when I left, despite the local police team and council being involved.
Where I am now it's a 'council estate' but it's a mix of ha tenants, some private tenants and some home owners. There's no trouble, least certainly none like that.
But I'm judged far more harshly for now living in a ha house than for private rented.

I divorced and had half the money from the matrimonial home. I wanted to buy a house so that no matter what, I'd have a roof over my head and for dc.

I bought an ex council house. I borrowed from my family. It left me cash poor, not a penny spare. I worked full time .

Some years later...... My daughter was almost finished her Phd. She was coming home on the bus from uni. She lived out but was coming to visit. An acquaintance from uni was with her on the bus. They both got off at the same stop, the guy living in up market private housing. he asked my dd ...do you live xxxxx. When my dd said yes the guy said... How on earth did you manage to get a degree when you live there.
My dd got a First Class Honours primary degree, and then did a Phd.I

Stigma exists.

LadyB49, I know a number of people who have bought ex council houses. They were built pre war with generous gardens and space for a drive. In my outer London suburb they are desirable properties. Often there is nothing wrong with social housing. The problems lie with unruly tenants who spoil life for everyone else.
It's a bit like excluding children from school. They have a right to education and schools are reluctant to permanently exclude but it makes classroom life miserable for well behaved children having poorly behaved classmates.
There must be ways of dealing with social housing tenants that are aggressive neighbours to others, deal drugs etc. There must be real consequences so that social housing is taken away from those who abuse the system. then the stigma would go away.
I know loads of people bought up in social housing (Margaret Forster, Robert Harris) who went to Oxbridge and did brilliantly but that tended to be when social housing was for ordinary, hardworking people. Today some sink estates have become ghettos and that needs to change so that social housing is available for a cross section of communities. (a bit like the ideal of a truly comprehensive school).

Social housing worked. (We wouldn't have the men to fight ww2 without it)
Even the Right to buy worked (loath as I am to credit Thatcher) social mobility booned.
What we needed and need is more social housing to be built.
We should be angry we were robbed by central gov keeping the proceeds of RTB.
We should be furious the existing SH is being sold to housing associations for execs to profit.
Instead we castigate people for needing or wanting to use SH as it were intended, and on mnet blame them for having children.

There is stigma.
I lost my lovely private flat about 18 months ago due to not being afford the rent once my children were taken in to care. After living in supported housing for a while I was eventually offered my little flat.

When I found out I got my HA flat people warned me that it was a dangerous place to live and advised me not to take the place. It had a reputation.

Been here 10 months now and haven't had a single problem. Next door works full time and are really friendly. Above me is a small family and apart from the occasional child crying I haven't had any complaints. (not that I have ever complained to the family about it)

Everyone says hello to each other, children play outside and are generally respectful. The HA seem to have a good mix of people here. Some work, some dont.

I don't have an issue with social housing, I use to live in HA properties so I am grateful they exist - what I do not like about HA properties and probably the reason the stigma exists is the small minority of social housing tenants that absolutely take the piss and create the whole stereotype of the "social housing tenant".

When I lived with my parents in a HA property, we had at least four families on our road that exploited the system by having child after child to "force" the HA to give them a bigger property. Neither parent worked and had no desire to do so. They were also all horrifically antisocial and believed they could do whatever they wanted.

Just the behaviour of these four properties made our road "notorious" and it actually made me ashamed to live there.

It is tenants like these that give social housing a bad name and it isn't fair as most social housing tenants are not like this at all!

When I moved out with my then boyfriend, it was a HA flat. The people around us were all generally hard working and well behaved but again, the area had a bad reputation because it was "social housing", apparently due to previous tenants behaving badly.

When we purchased our first house on shared ownership, it was classed as affordable housing. I remember overhearing the people who purchased the house behind us (big expensive private house) complaining about how they would have to relocate their patio so the "social housing" couldn't see them when they dined outside

In my experience, the stigma attached to social housing is due to the antisocial behaviour of the minority and the fact that the HA's have little power to do anything to stop the bad behaviour. The majority of social housing seems to be treated like a lower social class these days.

Not to mention, shows like that "benefits street" only add to peoples beliefs that all social housing is like that

I grew up in social housing. Families were moved from slum clearance housing in north London to new housing estates in Hertfordshire.

All families we knew on the estate were hard working people, who took pride in their new homes and gardens.

Many bought their homes under the right to buy scheme, and there are only a few HA homes left on the estate now. My parents home is still HA owned and looks no better/worse than the private homes that surround it.

I now own my home along with my husband after being left money from his family. During the early years of our marriage we lived in a council flat, then a house when we had children. Again we had lovely neighbours, some we still keep in touch with.

People do now judge families living in social housing. This didn't seem to be the case for us years back when my parents first became council tenants.

Makes me larf the local FB groups- states house this, states house that. You don’t click your fingers and get one. Our claim finally went somewhere after spending almost a year in inadequate temp housing. We got an old sofa bed so kids could have the bedroom. Mechanism bust, couldn’t afford another, so spent months kipping on a corner sofa - me on two seater bit, DH on the three seater bit. We woke up in agony from being so scrunched up each morning.

Almost everyone I know around my age who got social housing here has had a shit time getting it - shit temp housing, sleeping in cars, women’s DV shelter, the “single mums” home, social workers etc. People who technically fill the criteria but are comfortable in decent rentals don’t get a look in.

www.themeteor.org/2018/09/28/trafford-housing-trust-install-faulty-heating-system-overcharge-double-for-years-then-only-pay-partial-refund/

When I first met my now DH, he was renting from his DF on a very undesirable estate. We both were the only people we knew of that actually bothered working (legally) and also seemed the only ones without 5/6/7+ animals children. A lot actually did work, as cowboys/rip off merchants/shop lifters but also claimed the maximum in benefits. Sat out on the front all summer with bottles of cider, smoking, sweating and generating just being nuisances.
That now is my idea of social housing estates sadly as it's the only one I've been around for any length of time. I however would not bash anybody openly to them about their choices and I'm sure there are decent people living on such estates somewhere.
I'm not even sure what point I'm trying to make here actually...just trying to point out why many people see social housing tenants in this way when sadly not all are like this

And here is where it leads.

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/rock-street-housing-association-oldham-16064793?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar

YANBU

I will just point out that not everybody in SH lives on estates. My HA owns only I think 3 or 4 houses in the street I’m in. It’s not any kind of estate, just a normal street. There’s nothing to mark my house out as “different” from anyone else’s. So you don’t always know who is and isn’t a SH tenant. Likewise some people have bought houses on estates and people presume they are tenants, when they actually own.

I was reading an article in my local
paper earlier ,apparently my housing association is proposing too build 43 new houses on some green belt land I was reading the comments ,apparently my rent and tv license is free and bills are subsidised i and we are all on benefits it's need to me!

News*

A HA project, buying houses near the hospital, renovating and restricting the lets to NHS workers caused a riot our Facebook page X2 because all the new tenants were foreigners.
Apparently they were determined to shoe horn EE European people in to the village and this was all a cunning plan.
It was embarrassing.

The UK has a very strange obsession with home ownership. I was born in social housing and am currently living in social housing, fortunately for me, I no longer live in the UK so don’t have to perpetually roll my eyes when people make stupid comments.

The situation is much better than in the UK because social housing is still being built, just moved to a new build with underfloor heating and solar panels on the roof. However, social housing here has similar pressures in that demand far outstrips supply. As hated as the bedroom tax is, it was introduced for a reason and was the stick the the house swap carrot.

I live in social housing. I got housed here because of domestic violence. I have a disabled child and I have PTSD and ME. It’s difficult for me to earn much for these reasons.

I have fairly wealthy parents who could quite easily have helped me out but for whatever reason they didn’t. So this is where I am, and I’m really grateful for a secure and affordable place to raise my children.

If anyone has a problem with that, then bollocks to them, quite frankly.

Housing benefit is means tested so if you have a work pension you won’t be entitled to it once you retire. It’s the biggest drawback of decent social housing- you will always need to pay rent.

HelenaDove, you are really well informed!
TheQueef, I agree with all your comments!
Island81, hope your troubles with DV and your health are well behind you.

As I mentioned in an ear list post I bought an ex council house. It was a lovely area and won awards for best kept estate. The houses in either side were still rented from the council and I had many happy years there. Until my lovely neighbour aged 85 died. The new tenant was a emergency housing.... Her ex came kicking the door during the night. The police were regularly called for disruptive behaviour. Ashes from the fire were regularly emptied into the garden. The Garden also became dog poo central. Recreate son was arrested when the house was raised for drugs. Mum went off for days leaving teens and it then became party time for days in end. Eventually iron grids went onto the Windows for their safety, such was their lifestyle...... After a year I sold my house as I could stick it no longer. Our lovely wee area was no more.
Complaints to the council did no good.