To want social housing for most

[Jillybons]

I find it strange that in the U.K. we are so protective and proud of public healthcare and see it as a universal right regardless of household income (which I fully support).

But when it comes to public housing we vilify it and criticise people who have public houses as ‘less’ than those who rent privately or own houses.

Shouldn’t public housing be the standard for 90% of the population and private housing be the ‘option’ just like private healthcare?

What do you think?

The problem with social housing is that the supply is limited and that it is targeted to the wrong people. To obtain SH you should be working, to keep it you should have to show that you are looking after it, much as per the original requirements when SH was introduced post war. Yes something needs to be done for the less capable portion of society but SH has been tarnished by drunks/drug addicts playing music at 4am who wants to live next door to that even if "its not their fault"!

[quote Jillybons]@GappyValley I assume there is (though i don’t know so won’t pretend to) a ‘standard level’ provided by the govt in Sweden and then if you want the big house in the country with a pool, then you can ‘go private’[/quote]
So what happens when you don’t want “a big house in the country with a pool” but you don’t want to rent for your entire life either? I’ve lived in both and while renting has its upsides (flexibility to move without hassle, maintenance being someone else’s problem) I wouldn’t choose to go back to it unless I had to, not least because of the lack of agency, everything being a bit municipal and because there is always, always the temptation to save a bit of money by cutting corners, delaying repairs or doing things cheaply (as opposed to well).

That said, I think social housing should be available to more people, it should be in the hands of a non-profit third party (ie not local government but not private landlords either), and there should be greater security of tenancy for both private and public tenants (with corresponding greater powers to remove problem tenants - with the right to be housed comes the responsibility not to be an arsehole) with controls on rent increases. But if you want to buy you should be allowed to.

OP having a majority of housing stock owned by the government sounds like a good idea - paying them money instead of private LL :D
The main quibble i can see is allocation...who gets to decide who lives jn the ‘good’ areas?
And there has to be enough private housing so that people who are not long term residents can move easily / rent houses above what they’d be ‘allocated’.
For example me and DP WFH so rent a 3 bed. If most housing were social we’d be last on the list because we don’t have kids

@Nocar

I think social housing, or at least housing that is as regulated as social housing should be available to all. Meaning - Everyone should have access to fair rent. Property being maintained and kept in good condition. Security of lifetime tenancy. I don’t agree that social housing should be for the most deprived members of society, they need to be prioritised, but anyone that applies should be given fair access.

Agree with this.

Trouble is we've got:

• an ageing population living 20 years longer than previous generations
• mass housing stock was sold off in the 80s/90s and not replaced
• population boom
• very few new builds

DD lives in a lovely HA property - has had new glazing, kitchen and bathroom in the last 5 years. But the neighbours are a massive issue.
She feels very trapped not being able to afford to buy and facing a lifetime of living next to antisocial families.

No, are you a communist OP?
Most people want to be able to do things to their property to improve it and want things to be fixed quickly and properly. You can’t move easily to adapt to your families changing needs.
Social housing is best kept for people in most need.

I don’t agree with the abolishing private landlords.
The ability to rent out a house is a pretty fundamental enabler of lots of parts of society...

Homeowners have plenty of legitimate reasons to rent somewhere out which doesn’t make them evil slim landlords

I’m not a landlord but I’ve rented in the past, and had a landlady who was renting me her former house while she moved to Scotland to look after her mum. I imagine that if she had been forced to sell up or not go, she probably wouldn’t have gone.

Another landlord was renting me his flat because he had moved away for work for a few years.

Not being able to rent your place out in order to do lots of ‘normal’ things like providing care, taking up a job, road testing living with a new partner, will surely have a pretty disruptive impact on big chunks of society?

Ylvamoon
I'd say no to social housing far too costly
Why is social housing more costly.
Most social housing is now managed by not for profit housing associations. Tenants pay rent, they're not living rent free.
Reserving social housing for those lowest down the social economic ladder, just creates slums and no go areas of town. The kids that grow up in them are likely to see only dysfunction and deprivation and continue the cycle.
I don't have an issue with home ownership, but I do strongly believe that social housing, or equivalent should be accessible for anyone that wants it. A secure affordable home is a basic human right and people shouldn't be allowed to profit off the blood, sweat and tears of those priced out of the housing market, to feather their own retirement funds.

There are some astounding posts on this thread!

You don't have to be a socialist to to think social housing is actually quite a good idea.

People living in rented properties owned by private landlords could instead live in accommodation owned by councils, which meets certain standards with no fear of eviction just become the landlord had a change of circumstances. Sounds bloody genius to me.

And there shouldn't be any shame in living in a council house.

There should be shame that some many council houses were sold off!

I'd say no to social housing far too costly

More costly than having to pay for private rents out of the benefits bill in order to house people, especially when those rents come with the landlord’s profits built in?

Once housing is built it only needs to be maintained. Rents need to be paid ad infinitum.

Your views appear to be somewhat dated. People’s income change. Those who live in London especially, their income has become much higher then when they received their council homes. There are instances of people earning 60k and paying 500 in monthly rent. Most just decorate and rip stuff out without even informing the council. Their homes are of high standard in decor etc; especially if you live in a decent area in London. There is differently a whiff of envy when it comes to SH. Or the outdated notion to live in one you must be piss poor.

@Nocar - you obviously haven't read my whole post.

That was to @cheesebubble

Building more social housing is actually really not very expensive at all, it actually would cost very little and be a positive stimulus to the economy - a considerably better stimulus than the same spent propping up the housing market, it's just very cheap government borrowing recycled very well into the economy.

What it does require though is local councils in areas where housing is needed to be able to do the urban in-fill in a way that the existing local community will be very much against, and to be able to use compulsory purchase on land that is not worth much at the moment ('cos you can't build houses on it) and then build houses on it.

Also need to be able to change the traffic in those areas to reduce car travel so the roads can cope with the numbers. Of course that's a worthy goal in itself, but the cost would not be that significant. The cost in electoral votes from the NIMBY's who see their houses valued less and new people moving in would end the councils dalliance with the idea though.

The lack of social housebuilding is not because it doesn't make financial sense for the country though.

I don’t agree with the abolishing private landlords

I don’t think private renting should be abolished but it shouldn’t be part of social housing structure. There’s a big difference between someone renting out a privately owned house that they’d actually lived in but have, say, moved abroad for work; and professional landlords who gobble up swathes of housing whose target market is benefits claimants/those on income support because the benefit payments are a steady income stream for them.

[quote Ylvamoon]@Nocar - you obviously haven't read my whole post.[/quote]
I have and you haven't answered my question. Why is social housing too expensive ?
The not for profit housing association in my area, is also a good local employer, staff are paid decent salaries, pensions etc.
Surely an even distribution of wealth through fair rents and decent employment is a better than a few people getting very wealthy of the backs of poor people.

More socialist state control. No thank you.

If houses were distributed on need and paid for in a means tested way.. there would be so many people giving up their stressful/ high-powered jobs and not bothering. I only do what I do to find our lifestyle, surely the country couldn’t keep going as it does if there wasn’t any need to work for better housing. Wouldn’t everyone want loads of children to get bigger houses? Do couples struggling with infertility for example have to live in the smallest houses? What about people with loads of pets, do they get bigger houses too? What about people who just decide to give up working and sit about in their means tested homes because they may as well, nothing to work towards?

I think that putting Housing for a huge majority of the population in the hand of the State is incredibly dangerous. I do not want one of the most important assets of a person depending on the goodwill of the State.
It would be very easy to have it skewed horribly by social engineering, political agendas etc...

Also, it would be hugely expensive, and frankly I do not see the point of working and paying taxes if this is going to pay for State oversight. I would just stop, downsize my expenses and ask for my Bread and Circus, holding out my hand.

@Nocar because land needs to be purchased and homes need to be built.

It would be far cheaper to reform the rental market by changing the laws and give tenants & landlords more security...

@EddyF I'd be surprised that person wouldn't want to buy a property then if on 60k even if he's in social housing now, however my views might be dated or not even true / correct because I do not know one person in social housing.

[quote Ylvamoon]@Nocar because land needs to be purchased and homes need to be built.

It would be far cheaper to reform the rental market by changing the laws and give tenants & landlords more security...[/quote]
Which is paid for through the rent. People in social housing pay to live there, they don’t get housed for free.
Housing associations run them as ‘ not for profit’. Unlike private landlords
Not sure how reforming an entire system, which would cost lots of money is somehow better than providing more funding for social housing ?
Although what was leaping out in your post was ‘better protection for landlords’ so I would hazard a guess at what your true motives are.

@EddyF I don’t think people are jealous of people in social housing, at least that’s not my experience at all. More that there’s a stigma attached to living in HA housing.

Maybe not 90% but really SH is a positive and shouldn't be viewed as anything other than a social resource that keeps our society and economy on an even keel.

The 10 or so years that I benefitted from having an SH home was incredibly helpful, but knowing what a scarce public resource it is, I handed it back to public use as soon as I was able.

Even though I now live in a 'lesser' home, that costs me more as I pay off a mortgage, at least I can, and I've freed up an SH home for one of the many that need them.

Yep - we need more Socio-Economic Housing, unless Capitalism has a better answer for where the low-waged service workers should healthily and happily live.