Younger people should be rewarded for lockdown via affordable housing

[Ordree]

As others have noted, young people (not just those in frontline roles) are making enormous sacrifices to protect others, mostly but not exclusively from much older age groups. They will be bequeathed a damaged planet, a ruined economy and they will have done further damage to their mental health by staying indoors for months on end. They are the ones paying older people's pensions when they won't have anything like the same financial security to look forward to themselves. Yes I know older people paid their elders pensions during their working lives, bit never has there been such an imbalance. As the economy is likely to be ruined short to medium term anyway, would it not be reasonable to start the biggest givernment-funded housebuilding programme ever, allow younger people who have just bought to write off negative equity losses against tax, and essentially redress some of the appalling imbalance between generations and classes?

@BumpyNugget - well said!

@Ordree - abusive??? Wow - you live a sheltered life!!! You are spouting a load of rubbish, and despite the majority of people disagreeing with you, you insist that your view is the only right one. Haven't you got anything better to do?
It was abusive, I haven't led a sheltered life at all, I am not going to back down even if everyone on here were to disagree with me, and it is my free choice (like it is yours) how much time I decide to spend on here.

NeverTwerk there have been "affordable" housing schemes, shared ownership and so on for years but the reality is right now and for many years there has been a chronic and socially destructive lack of affordable housing in almost all the UK especially the employment centres. There is no current prospect of this shortage being addressed in the near or medium term. As for the example you give, it does not change the reality that the average 60 something has had it easier financially than the average 20 something will should the current situation be allowed to persist.

But why should 'young people' be the only demographic "rewarded" for having to stay at home to save lives?

Why should the 24 year old, unemployed layabout,who's been sitting at home watching YouTube and playing Xbox, have the exact same "reward" as a 23 year-old health worker what has been pulling 12-14 hr shifts for the past few weeks??

My Dgd is in lockdown where she cannot even go out for exercise. She had a relapse of an auto immune blood disorder in March in which the treatment is immune suppressing drugs to stop her bleeding to death. She is 18. She has a single mum who is a carer and is having to do 6x12 hour shifts a week because of staff shortages. She is alone most if the time. I cannot go to her and she cannot come to me. She us sitting at home worrying whether she will be allowed the rightful grades she deserves for her A levels to attend the University she has worked so hard for 7 years to get a place. ( Top Russell Group Uni). It is an unfair system that is being used to assess these grades. This along with being locked up for at least another 4 months ( how long she will be on medication) no prospect of having an operation to remove her spleen which is needed while crisis is ongoing, maybe not the future she wants and I think you can say she is suffering and deserves a medal for putting up with it all without one word of complaint. That is the young adult I want to see get a reward. Any suggestions what reward she should get?

I don’t think the two issues are linked.

They are not making bigger sacrifices than the rest of the population during lockdown. Some people like those treating covid patients or putting themselves at risk to provide essential services are making much bigger sacrifices.

The reward for complying is being alive, keeping other people including family members alive.

Yes there should be affordable housing but not as a carrot to get people to comply with lockdown.

Those who don’t comply should be fined.

My DD who is a care worker on minimum wage, zero contract hours, living in private rented property where if you ask the landlord to do repairs you would probably be evicted, but cannot get a council house even though born and bred in her town should then be in line for affordable housing at least seeing as she's paying half her wages for the sub standard house she lives in for rent and gets no help towards that rent?

How about rewarding the elderly with a massive hike in the state pension? After all, they are at risk of dying alone in a hospital as a statistic. Or, at least, of not seeing their family properly for months when time is already not on their side. Or all of a sudden becoming reliant on other people after doing all they can to live without doing so.
It's shit for everyone.

16 pages in and we haven’t established, despite OP being repeatedly asked, what a “young person” is.

Nor why the Covid19 situation itself (referring back to the title of this post) has either contributed to the disparity alleged by OP or why in itself it justifies rewarding one small subsection of society?

OP has set their hypothesis, gone off on a separate tangent relating to piecemeal anecdotal tales of disadvantaged peers earning more than the national average and paying out less housing expenses than is the norm, a complaint about university fees which deviates from her original point and with no clear link (atleast not one OP has even attempted to explain) to the topic OP has purported to want to discuss.

OP I know you will say I am “debasing” your argument, but this is not an argument nor a discussion. A discussion would allow people to put forward opposing arguments and you furnishing them with information critical to that end i.e reasoning behind your thoughts, clear definitions that people are then able to explore. This is more like a tenuous link and ramblings of your thoughts which collectively make little sense.

University should equip you with skills for such discussions and debates, critical thinking and reasoning skills. You appear to be lacking. I would have saved that £27k (presuming you went for 3 years, we’ll never know given you’re especially economical with details, if you’re even sure of them yourself) for a house deposit and you’d have less to whinge about now.

Even if the COVID 19 situation had never happened, housing costs would still need addressing as imo they are simply too high. If there is no radical reduction in costs after the situation is resolved, one that outweighs the loss to future earning power (affecting younger generations more than older ones due to the latter having had more pre Covid years to build net worth and careers) then the unfairness see saw will be radically tilted further against those younger people, which IMO means, added with the fact that a disproportionate benefit of the shutdown of the economy has gone to older people, that it is only right that this is the point to take radical action to rebalance a generational unfairness which if left unaddressed could well lead to mass emigration of young people who are the lifeblood of the future of the country. I quite get that the majority of posters disagree with me, however I have read nothing to alter my viewpoint one iota. If anything the ridicule, conjecture and at times personal abuse has strengthened my belief that there is a serious paucity of counterarguments, and a serious absence of basic civility among many posting here.

OP the title of your post is ”Younger people should be rewarded for lockdown via affordable housing”

So you’re now saying the lockdown itself is irrelevant?

You’ve given scope for counterarguments. You’ve not provided sufficient clarity to allow for counterarguments. If you want a quality debate you need to provide something sound on which to debate.

Sorry not given scope.

You can’t even decide the topic of the debate now...

Did you lose your seat in the last election, dear? You sound like a bitter Corbyn supporter. For all you moaning there will be no ‘affordable’ housing. People are losing their jobs and businesses daily, the government is borrowing billions to sort out the virus and save lives. The economy will have to restart soon to get people working again to pay taxes to pay off the borrowing. House building will have to take a step back

that a disproportionate benefit of the shutdown of the economy has gone to older people

Could you explain?

@leckford OP doesn’t want to buy a house, she wants to take one from an “older” person shielding from a deadly virus as payback for the hardship of staying inside and posting drivel on Mumsnet.

Finally, the ‘young people’ are going to emigrate, where to exactly? The virus has hit everywhere and property is unaffordable in most affluent cities, Paris, New York, LA, etc

These are very very hard times for lots of different people. The housing crisis is a separate issue. The problem for the state is we are spending much more money than we have so the chances are next year national insurance contributions will go up for lots of "white van men" and others on relatively low wages and sadly unlike after a world war we are not going to be ina time of booming plenty to reward lots of people who have suffered in their own various ways. Instead it is likely to be a time of depression with hardly enough money to maintain current wage levels for teachers and nurses. It is going to be very difficult indeed as we chose to crash the economy and destroy the lives of 60m so that a tiny proportion of the usual 600,000 a year deaths in the UK was not added to that usual total.

In depressions there are many fire sales of houses so middle earners currently struggling to buy IF but only if they keep their job (not likely for huge numbers) may pick up some bargains. I would always recommend by the way where my mother grew up by the sea near Sunderland - the house her mother rented costs £50k to buy today.

Olde people have benefitted from the lockdown???? How on earth do you work that out?

You sound like one of those people who think pensioners should be forced out of the family home they've bought, paid for and looked after and maintained for decades, and sent off to a one bed roomed maisonette miles away from their friends and the community they've helped build.

To be honest OP if anyone is trying to benefit from this awful situation it sounds like it's you.

Xenia I thought your post was excellent. Certainly true that there will be enormous challenges to almost everyone in the subsequent depression. True too that some will perhaps benefit in the way you say if they still have a job or have money. U have heard the NE coast is very beautiful

I do find our generation to be very entitled.
We've never really been told "no". Life is more convenient in so many ways with all the tech we have now.

So when we get given a simple instruction to stay home. I've heard so many people say things like "no body can tell me what to do"
"There's no way I'm going 3 weeks without seeing my family" etc.
You know what they need to do, they need to get over it!

The children being evacuated in WW2 didn't have bloody Skype. But you didn't hear people refusing to do it.

I don't think staying at home and having a few weeks of Netflix and chill is really a huge hardship to be honest.
The government are already spending billions on firefighting in alot of areas here. Including helping small businesses stay afloat. I think what you are proposing OP is unnecessary given how much debt the country is going to be in after this is all over.

I suppose if the new normal is some people (not all) can work from home those £50k, £60k houses in the NE might be quite tempting for many. My father's parents owned a house in Bishop Auckland (3 or 4 bed terraced with cellar). Bit like this one and on same road - www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices/detailMatching.html?prop=56137671&sale=8899777&country=england

I don't think staying at home and having a few weeks of Netflix and chill is really a huge hardship to be honest

Given that nobody knows how long the current (and subsequent) lockdowns will last, what is the duration of lockdown under existing UK conditions, and the level of economic hardship after which you would consider a significant hardship?

How about key workers are rewarded with pay rises instead?

The economic hardship isn’t exclusive to the “young” though is it Ordee? It’s more related to your role and the sector you work in. I’m WFH and so have no drop in pay for now atleast (I’m very lucky and acknowledge that) my DH is a key worker and still at work. I’m not sure if you’d class us as young, but I believe we are.

If anything, immediately the young are least affected. The less assets you have the less capital you lose.

I don’t disagree the housing market needs a shake up and my job is within the sector and thus I am well informed on the topic. But I don’t agree with your hypothesis or that young people are suffering disproportionately.