To think councils should move people to smaller properties when kids move out?

[Faithin]

There's a huge lack of 3 bedroom social housing where I live (and everywhere I think?)
a lot of the people living in the 3 bed places are usually just 1 or 2 adults as the kids have grown up and moved out. Meanwhile there's lots of young families overcrowded in 1 and 2 bed flats with no garden etc
aibu to think those that actually need the space should be in the houses and those who don't should be made to downsize?
as the waiting list is so long, what tends to happen is peoples children are in their teens by the time they are moved into a 3 bed property, the grow up and leave within a couple of years and the parents stay, so the vast majority are under-occupied.

Yes they are or the thrown around phrase "subsidised'"

What? So I should live in a house that has no carpets . That's not what happens in private rentals

The usual race to the bottom from some MN'ers!

People have proven to be really thick and will double down and make themselves look to be even thicker on this subject. It's amusing

🙄

So I should've lived in a house with concrete floors downstairs, uncovered floorboards upstairs and black mould stains and damp marks on the walls?

I wonder what the social services would've said if my children had reported no flooring in their home. And rooms with black mould stains and half ripped off wallpaper.

According to MN, you should also have worn rags for clothes, eaten nothing but warmed up gruel, and get your entertainment by looking at birds in the local park.

I don’t think council tenants should have to move when they no longer need the space, but I do agree with the bedroom tax. It’s not fair or sustainable for the state to pay for a single person to live in a 4 bed house while other council tenants are ridiculously cramped. I agree part of the problem is lack of housing but we will never be able to build enough houses for everyone to live permanently in the biggest house they’ve ever needed.

Yeah @XenoBitch

It's the fact that I had secure stable accommodation for me and my children that enabled me to get qualified in a profession and buy a house. And gave my children stability - which has enabled them all to go to university and achieve in their lives.

But council scum should know our place innit.

"Because I'm in a shit situation I want everyone else to be too or its not fair, blah blah some bullshit about rent being subsidised even though it isnt"

Are you not embarrassed to think that everyone should be in a crap situation because some people are?

I agree OP.
I don't think people should be forced out but they should definitely be incentives to downsize. Likewise privately owned. For instance, not council tax discounts for single occupancy.

Some people won't be happy until there's a return to Victorian slums!

Im in a 3 bed council house in West Yorkshire just me and my husband.We are on band A and have been bidding every Wednesday , are position is normally between 100-150 .Its been about 6 months of bidding so far , we are desperate to downsize as the house is to much to keep up as have huge gardens and we're both disabled even tried mutual exchange but keep getting mucked about.

Personally I think the best thing the government could do is a massive council house building programme, so that people have secure home. I think it would be the biggest way to reduce poverty as well.

We should fix the private rental market, not screw over people who have been lucky enough to get some security.

The bedroom tax only applies to people on housing benefit.

Unfortunately where I live there are a lack of 1/2 bedroom homes that suit alot of older peoples' need. ( Disability access etc). We need more decent social housing built. We have had it drummed into us that social housing is just for those in poverty or low wages. This is not the case in other countries in Europe and was not the case pre 1979. But hey that's crazy mad communism isn't it !(not)

We should fix the private rental market, not screw over people who have been lucky enough to get some security.

This. And it looks as if Starmer’s planning to do that. I’m looking forward to seeing the detail of how Labour plans to achieve it.

If Starmer added a social housing build to the manifesto he could bank my vote. His speech today impressed me but we've got to address the housing crisis with equal gusto.

The elderly are exempt from bedroom tax, all it does is have an effect on people like me who when my eldest moved out was classed as having an extra room as the 11 and 9 year old could share

As it is they've never shared as the youngest has autism and no one would ever get any sleep. Luckily I moved onto universal credits who used common sense and I'm now exempt from bedroom tax again

6 months of paying it and having even less to live on though. Not sure how I was supposed to find the money to move into a smaller property at that point

Yes, it isn't a tax. Its a level of benefits appropriate to the household size. People paying their own rent aren't penalised.

My inlaws downsized from a largish 3 bedroomed house to a smaller ground floor flat. A blessing in terms of heating costs back then, even more so now.

It's also interesting how many people are talking as if they could all be moving into care homes/sheltered housing.

Yet how many people of normal working age are under occupying social housing? Would you like be happy kicked out of your home in your mid 50s and shoved in a flat? Maybe nowhere near work? Then everyone would just be moaning about grandparents not helping out with childcare....

I've got splinters from fence sitting on this one. On the one hand I think it's their home and forcing elderly people out of the homes they may have lived in for many, many years is pretty shit. But on the other hand my mother has lived in her 4 bedroomed council house for 35 years, the last 10 of which have been entirely by herself. But then her house is in a village where she knows everyone and downsizing would mean moving away completely. Away from neighbours who pop in for a cuppa, away from kids who help her carry her shopping, away from the only community she knows.

So maybe the answer is to build more council houses rather than pit younger families against older people.

Decent maisonettes would solve a lot of the social housing issues. Always harp on about it, gardens, driveways. People would be more tempted to swap if the properties were attractive. They would also suit small families as well as retirees