To think people dont understand the magnitude of the social housing crisis?

[Arrowfanatic]

I work in social housing. We have endless requests for moves from customers who expand their family whilst in a property which is unsuitable to move them to a bigger property. We advise that family size housing (3 bed+) has a waiting list of around 10+ years and then these customers get mad.

We're accused of allowing them to stay in overcrowded properties, or affecting their mental & physical health and inevitably an overcrowded property becomes prone to damp & mould as it's too full.

These customers also want these houses in the exact location they desire, thereby limiting even more their chances of a move.

We get so demoralised when every day it's the same thing, but social housing is at a massive shortfall for the needs of the country & family size housing is in an even greater shortfall.

My company has an extensive plan to build more properties but it's a 5 year plan!

It's like they think we're lying to them, or the old classic of "you housing immigrants straight away" note, we dont, they have to apply like everyone else. We dont want our customers in unsuitable accommodation, and we really work hard on making the housing stock we do have work.

If you're in this position what could we tell our customers to make them understand the position we are in, and the one they have put themselves in and why we cant help as quickly as they would like.

I feel like I say "we have a shortage of family size housing" 100 times a day & get yelled at 100 times a day for our association not caring.

I would love to have another child. I won't because we can't afford to move to a bigger house and certainly wouldn't get social housing.

The system needs a complete overhaul, and those with genuine need ie disability, SEN etc should take priority with those who carry on and have a ridiculous amount of children. I have no sympathy for someone with that many kids demanding a bigger property.

Right to buy should be abolished. A ridiculous arbitrary discount. Under occupancy penalties regardless of age needs to be enforced. Purposefully making your household crowded (having a 4th child in a 2 bed flat for example) should be disregarded in the allocation of new/bigger properties.

Harsh? Social housing tenants who object always forget that there are other families stuck in the private rental sector with its unsecured tenure & poorer quality housing.

This isn't about poor individual decision making or the "feckless poor" the situation we are in now is down to poor government handling of the issue. Until the situation is eased or resolved, social housing tenants will have to get used to the words "sorry" & "no".

Half my town is empty and could be turned into social housing however its owned by foreign investors and they will rather let the property rot than sell it for housing the rents they charge are ridiculous high considering the size of the dying town so they stay empty and rot

Sometimes a pregnancy is a contraceptive failure.
Sometimes twins is a surprise.
Sometimes a woman is in an abusive relationship and has no choice about pregnancies.
Sometimes, people love chaotic lives through no fault of their own and contraception is a casualty of that.

But...

My cousin has 5 kids.
Many years ago, she got a council house with her boyfriend and their first child. Not a great area, but not awful. No waiting list, a 3 double bedroom.
They now have 5. 3 planned. The last 2 were contraceptive failures.
Only when she told me what really happened, #4 was conceived when she was part time breastfeeding and her periods had already come back. So the “contraceptive” that failed was breastfeeding.
Now #5 she was actually on the pill. Some time later she casually said “well, I was on the pill - but actually I think he was conceived about 2 weeks before I started it”.

Totally anecdotal, but my gut feel is that the % of genuine failures, or chaotic situations etc, is lower than the % of planned pregnancies and the % of reckless not really an accident at all pregnancies.

Once - ONCE - my cousin complained to me that she had 2+5 in a 3 double bed house. I did say - you pay £440 a month for that. My mortgage on a 2 bed flat is £600. You had a spare bedroom, then a bedroom for each child. You chose #3, 4 and 5. So put up, and shut up.

I totally get you OP. You can have empathy for those in genuine need, whilst feeling frustrating that professionally you can’t shut some customers up, the way I did my cousin!!

How many families (with children) could you emergency house in one day? E,g if they were evicted, homeless etc.

Not the OP but I used to work for a local authority's Homeless team. As many as we had to. If we didn't have enough temporary accommodation (flats/houses/hostel beds) we would see if we could "borrow" any ready to move in housing stock from the Housing department, speak to the neighbouring authorities to see what they could do and if all else failed budget hotel rooms.

I currently live in temporary council housing with 4 children .. before we get personal I was on a long term tennacy with my landlord before things got sour and he evicted us as I have private rented through council acting as estate agent before we sought council help, they stiffed us sent us to a hell hole town 2 hours away and now we're back in our area 3 years in to our wait. I personally am nothing but happy with the temp flat we are in except we are surrounded by heroin addict and all sorts IV had my children videos by neighbor has bikes and children's stuff stolen have had near gist fights with discussing people and the police are here 3 tiles a week sometimes the problem isn't the property but the placing or the people. I'm greatful just to have a home tbh we were nearly on the street

There are however a lot of houses being kept away from the familys waiting for one we have oaps refusing to downsize therefore they have a three bed and families are stuck in a one bed this should change I'm about to be charged bedroom tax despite my daughter still being at university and still living at home if i am still on full benefits when this happens I will either downsize and sleep on the sofa or pay the difference im a carer I dont have money to throw around

Bte our rent is £300 a week and we are outside London so we are paying market price it's not always about cheap or free sometime you have no choice

If governments really wanted to tackle the problems in social housing they would have made pensioners liable for bedroom tax. It would be hugely unpopular politically and pensioners vote, so they won’t. There are people in their 60s +, living alone or just with a partner, in 4 bed social housing homes that could be there for another 15 -20 years.

I think the lack of adapted properties suitable for those with disabilities etc is terrible, not only are you likely to find yourself at the mercy of the benefit system due to being unable to work, but you'll be waiting in an unsuitable property for years because you can't afford anything privately. Those who choose to have more children than they can house, not so much.

I feel some people are being a bit contradictory here. On the one hand saying you shouldn't have more kids if you don't have suitable accommodation. But at the same time saying people should be forced to move once their kids are grown to make way for those who have had all these children!

I am lucky. I have a HA place with a secure tenancy (got my first council place 28 years ago due to fleeing DV). I have never been rehoused somewhere bigger or better. I exchanged, many times (8 in 10 years and my last one was a 4 way exchange!) to get to where I wanted to be, in a house I like. Damn right I won't be giving up my lovely home to move to a grotty one bed flat! And yes I do work and pay all my rent! Social housing was not initially designed to be a "safety net" but it has become that, due in large part to the mass sell off.

My issue with the council workers I came into contact with is that they treated me like dirt on their shoe, just because I was in social housing. I'm guessing if you were like that OP, you wouldn't be posting. But many housing staff, do treat people like this so that's why they come in with a defensive attitude. Same as DWP staff when they deal with unemployed people. The odd one or two are nice. The rest treat people like dirt.

How many families (with children) could you emergency house in one day? E,g if they were evicted, homeless etc.

In the housing association I work for we couldn't house any, we dont have any emergency accommodation.

I think it's the suggestion from people that we dont want to help people move if they really need it. If you're disabled now & can't manage stairs or you have SEN kids who need a bigger house etc. We WANT to help, we just can't as we dont have the housing stock and getting snotty & insisting we move you and threatening MPs and the papers still wont enable us to pull a suitable house out of mid air.

Getting people to leave their homes to downsize is so difficult as it's their home. Now we sign people up on 6 year tenancies that get assessed at the end but if we do end those tenancies chances are we wouldn't have anywhere to rehouse them so we dont end them as we aren't in the business of making people homeless either.

I can think of a half a dozen families just off the top of my head who deserve a move for genuine reasons but for one of those families the area they want/need last had a family house come up for letting in 2002.

It's frustrating as I do want to just scream that we are trying to help, we really are please stop accusing me of failing our duty of care to you, or revelling in leaving you in a horrid situation as it's just not true.

To be fair, the housing association need to curate their housing stock in a better way. I live in an housing association house in a cul de sac of 38 houses. Of these houses, 15 are 3 bedroom houses occupied by just 1 or 2 people. Because they've lived here for a long time and are reliable with paying rent and not causing any anti social problems, the HA just leave them be. They don't seem to see the need to downsize these tenants thereby releasing family houses.

We do see the need to downsize, but equally we cant force people out of their homes without a court order.

I am in social housing, after five years of private rental. It's a new build property and I pay a % of my rent towards the right to buy, so currently I have a 38% deposit should I wish to buy (I've been here 8 years). When you buy however you don't have the same benefits other posters have said, such as maintenance, repairs etc. Plus, I'm now in a decent job and I'd like to hope I can utilise that deposit eventually on another property so I can free up this property and return it to the "system". At the moment we're not allowed to transfer that money, but the HA are in discussions with us regarding this.

I do however believe that if people no longer need a property the size they have, they should be made to downsize. I've two daughters and we happily grind together in a two bed. Yet there are some properties on my estate which are 3 bed with only one child. Also, we have a couple who have had their children removed for whatever reason, and are still living in their 4 bed detached home. It causes major gossip and annoyance with the neighbours that they have kept their home, but I think they must be paying their rent and therefore the housing cAnt do anything about it. Likewise, if I'm still here when my children leave home, I should be made to go to a one bed to free up this one.

The downsizing argument is spot on but for that to succeed we need one level accessible homes for the hugely increasing elderly population, nobody is moving to a 3rd floor flat at 65 that in a few years they’ll not be able to climb the stairs to. There needs to be a huge amount of housing built and quickly but unlikely under the current greedy govt in WM.

We do see the need to downsize, but equally we cant force people out of their homes without a court order.

But there must be something you can do? I've been a HA tenant for about 25 years, and I would happily have a revolving 5 year tendency.

@Carpathian2 as would I. I do get the argument about not wanting to go into a high rise at 65, or not knowing what our needs will be. But I do know by the time I'm 55 I'm highly unlikely to need more than one bedroom. But then again, MN seems to think that grandparents are babysitters...so perhaps I'll need that spare bedroom after all!

Previous posters are right, in my area (SE) there are very few smaller properties for over 60s to move in to, many would be glad to downsize but there’s simply nowhere to downsize to. New HA and social housing developments Need to have mixed units in so people can stay in their neighbourhood but move to housing which meets their changing needs.

The right to buy, and people not downsizing or being supported to downsize is the issue. Though I do know a few people couples on their own in massive 3 or 4 bed houses with no intention of downsizing...spending thousands dont the house up, or on high end cars/caravans it's disgusting especially my area which has a major shortage of 4 beds. And young family's seriously overcrowded. I don't have a lot of sympathy for people that deliberately overcrowd and moan...

But there must be something you can do?

Like what, magic up properties they can downsize people to? A lot of HAs don't have the stock for that, either, so there's no place for people who downsize to move.

@Carpathian2

That's great that you would do that but many wouldnt. Even a 6 year tenancy we would have to serve a notice to quit, which if the customer doesn't do then we have to apply to court and wait for a judge to agree that we should get the property back. Unfortunately if that customer doesn't have rent arrears or isn't causing lots of antisocial behaviour it would be highly unlikely a judge would grant this as we are effectively making someone homeless. No matter how much we want it back we lack the powers to force it.

Anyone who wants to downsize we guidepost to things like homeswapper for a mutual exchange.

It's also worth remembering that some areas have an order that says all housing associations have to offer any vacancies to the Councils waiting list, its called a 100٪ nomination order. This means we cant even move our own residents into another of our own properties. In the minimum most councils insist we have 50% of our properties open for them to use their housing list for.

I'm a social housing tenant with 3/4 kids still at home. My eldest still lives at home aged 24 because he just cannot afford to rent privately in our area ( SE England) even though he words extremely long hours to make ends meet. My other two are still teenagers at school. I just cannot understand people who want to stay in a 3 bed property when all kids have left home! There's no way I will be staying on my own in a large house when mine have all left home. I will happily move into a smaller house or flat.

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All these people so kindly offering to downsize to a flat would probably be less willing if they actually experienced living in a HA flat. The lack of families means it’s mostly singles and couples, and they is a constant stream of people moving in and out. Drugs, antisocial behaviour, police coming, fights in the street or stairwells. Being scared to leave your flat because you don’t know who will be hanging around on the stairs. Walking over broken glass because flat 1 have had a domestic again and kicked their own door in. Fire alarms being set off. The stink from other peoples flats coming into your home. At least in houses, if this stuff happens, you aren’t in the same building and you feel more safe.

I would never give up my house to go back to a flat and I think anyone who does is insane.