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.

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

Which most won't bother with because exchanging can so often go wrong and leave one or more swappers potentially homeless.

@Carpathian2 my mums road is exactly the same. Four people all living in separate 3 bed houses on their own. The awful thing is that they are all members of the same family!

If people have children that they can’t support themselves they probably aren’t going to be able to understand why there is a shortage/that one even exists in the first place. Must be quite frustrating for you but you can’t expect people to know what they don’t know. Or to understand what they can’t understand.

@Mouldmeabucket when you put it like that

I live in social housing, a one bedroom flat with my dog - no garden but I don't moan about it. Ever.

I was awarded the flat after I left an abusive relationship and had nowhere else to go. I was sofa surfing at 35 with 1 bag of clothes and a dog. All I wanted was somewhere safe to live and start over. I moved from my home town (only about 5 miles away) but would have waited far longer to have stayed closer to family. I was and still am grateful for my home, I work full time and pay full rent but I couldn't afford to rent privately on my single wage. Not everyone is a sponge just trying to get higher up the housing ladder.

If you’re getting a free house then you should be grateful for any roof over your head and stop whinging that it’s not big enough. There aren’t enough houses to go round and they aren’t building more because developers only want green field sites. In my town there’s a huge ex industrial site that would accommodate 1500 houses but developers don’t want to build on it - instead they’re fighting with local residents over plans to build in the countryside and it’s causing significant delays. If they’d agree to build on the ex industrial site they’d have full support and would have been granted permission by now. The council should be forcing them to build on brownfield sites.

It's awful to keep building on fields and I'm sure it doesn't help flooding with etc. You can't blame the residents.

We keep being told about being carbon neutral and going vegan which involves farming

@DillBaby
It’s not a FREE house, the rent can be high, honestly the horrible attitudes on here. You could be in need yourself one day. Developers that you’re talking about are building to sell so want to build in desirable areas.

One of the biggest problem is there arent enough rented properties, most of the builds around me are all part buy, which the majority of the young around me cant afford. I live in a rural area that is stagnating because none of the local young people can afford to buy here as (last time I checked 4 years ago) you needed a minimum of £50,000 deposit for a small 2 bed house and that was for the cheapest housing, housing cant be built in half the area due to it being a national park, the council need to find space for over 600 houses in half of the area due to aforementioned reasons, so most of the houses are all being built in the same areas that are now over run with not enough space in schools doctors etc and these houses arent being offered to most locals as they have all already moved away due to lack of housing in the area and arent allowed to move back. So in one hand I agree OP, because there is a massive housing shortage, but as a HA tenant I can see it from the other side. The flat I was in when i had both of my DC was not suitable for many many reasons, I had health professionals tell me it wasn't suitable and it would never work with 2 DC, but all the HA would say is that it was big enough for 4. We measured up and moved everything around in the room to be able to fit 2 cots in and it was impossible, we even tried to see if we could remove furniture and fit a cot in our room but again impossible , there just wasn't the space. It really does mess with your mental health especially when you just want to feel like someone is on your side.
I understand that you are in a difficult position OP as it isn't your help and the way things are are shit, but instead of just saying no there arent any houses, explain the housing crisis, ask them why they feel they are more in need than others and that you make no promises but see what you can do. It really does help to feel someone is on your side when in a shit situation.

My parents were elderly living in a tiny 3 bedroom council house. My mum actually wanted a small place on one level. But my dad already had the beginnings of dementia and got anxious at any suggestion of moving.
I also suspect more elderly people would move if there was practical help with the move. When you get older dealing practically with a move is tough without help.

But I agree with the person above that no one who has any sense is going to move into council flats. Where my parents live these are where people coming out of prison, with drug or alcohol issues or coming out of mental hospitals are placed. Of course there are others there too. But they are well-known for having loads of issues. Whereas where my parents lived they were surrounded by nice families who looked out for them.

OP I think when people are struggling they take out their frustration on people like you. It is not right, but I don't think there is anything you can say to make it better. Sorry, not helpful I know.

It’s not a FREE house, the rent can be high
And housing benefit pays the rent so it’s effectively free.

Developers that you’re talking about are building to sell so want to build in desirable areas
Social housing isn’t sold. It’s available to rent via the local authority. My town is currently arguing over a planned estate of 100 social housing properties on a green field site. They’re not selling them so there’s no reason why they can’t be built on a brownfield site instead.

Lots of people in council houses pay their own rent.

I am new to SH and I can see the biggest issue is right to buy. They houses in my city are disappearing at around 1% of stock per annum. No build programme is ever going to keep up with that.

The sense of entitlement - it wasn’t that long ago that you could walk into a housing office and say “I’m pregnant, I want a house” I think it will take a generation for that assumption to disappear.

My parents were paying as much rent on their council house as privately rented ones. The difference was that their tenancy was secure. My dad would never have coped with constantly moving from one private rent to another.

I live in social housing and am eternally thankful. We do need a bigger home BUT that's because oldest child has quite significant SEN and if her needs were apparent before ds arrived I wouldn't have had him.

My downstairs neighbours actively tried for a baby with the expectation they would be housed (gown up son and gf living with his mum who has the social housing). Baby is 3 months old and they don't have enough space to even put a cot up. Funnily enough council aren't interested.

There's a difference between ending up stuck and needing a hand to actively trying for a child imo

@LGY1 It is decades and decades since that has been the case.

The attitudes on here, the spouting of anecdotes and second hand stories to confirm ones own bias prove only one thing.

Wealth and good income isn't the product of intelligence.

Agree. It’s nobody’s fault apart from yourself if you continue to have children you can’t house... completely entitled attitude that you can act like and do what you want and not face the consequences.

@DillBaby
You do know SH isn’t just for benefit claimants?!? Have you read pp?
Middle class ignorance 🙄

Lots of people in council houses pay their own rent
If they can afford to pay rent then perhaps they shouldn’t be in council houses. There’s no reason why they can’t rent privately.

I work in social housing too but we have a shortage here of one bed properties and larger (4 plus beds) meaning people are often in a larger property struggling to pay due to bedroom tax etc too. We have an abundance of 3 beds though. You can’t win.

I read this recently, about how Kent CC are trialling using some of the larger town houses in Margate...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-49974001

@karencantobe not in my area, we are talking 10 years ago some of my friends got a house on that basis.

@DillBaby
I can take a wild guess how you voted.
Are you aware that people on minimum/low wages can’t save £40,000 deposits? You’re callous attitude does show you in a good light. If you’ve nothing kind to say why be on this thread.

@RainbowAlicorn we do explain it to them, I explain it till I'm blue in the face. But it just doesn't make a difference to those who considers they are entitled to a bigger house and that us as their landlord have a "duty of care" to them.

We often say in the housing world, and I dont know of the PPs on here who also work in it would agree, that we aren't just lettings administrators, or account managers, or Housing Officers, or ASB officers we're also unqualified support workers, mental health workers, police officers, social workers and everything inbetween. We have a duty of care to a degree, but we are at the end of the day just a landlord with not enough houses.