To think he’s choosing to be homeless and it’s right that he doesn’t get a housing association property?

[Casparr]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-68033982

Man works 50hrs a week. At minimum wage that’s 27k and about £1900 take-home each month. He sleeps at friends’ houses or his ex-partner’s, presumably for free. Why can’t he just get a room in a house share (under £600 a month in Glasgow) and save up a deposit for a flat?

The trouble with that scheme is only scum landlords sign up for it.

It can’t get a million times worse. Immigration isn’t the problem. Lack of social housing is.

On council housing things are obviously an awful mess now, but there was never a "golden age " of council housing where anyone who wanted one got one. Often eligibility was based on local links, ability to pay the rent and whether you were deemed "suitable" or "respectable".

A lot of vulnerable and chaotic people were ineligible for council housing as it was generally reserved for "respectable working class families".

In the fifties it was most likely a young single man on a low wage would be expected to return home to live with parents or lodge in a boarding house.

I think a woman is more vulnerable.

Being "judgemental" is held up as the absolute worst thing you could be on MN. If someone broadcasts their story for all to see in a BBC article, I think it's fine to make your own judgement and discuss it on a public forum. They're knowingly opening themselves up to criticism, and it's right that bad behaviour is judged negatively.

Or he doesn't want to be throwing money away on stupidly high rent. If doing this is helping him save money to put away for a deposit to buy then so be it.

I know food is expensive but £200 for a single person not enough?

Which is a valid strategy! Why pay more than you have to? And then exercise Right to Buy and save even more money.

@Winter2020 absolutely- I've said this before- also offer insurance and pension companies really big tax incentives to invest and build good social housing at intermediate rent 'higher than social rent in expensive areas but 30% less than open market' . In cheaper areas it would be social rent levels because there is only around 30% difference- in the expensive areas it can be up to 3 times as much - it's better long term safer bet than commercial property at the moment - people always need places to live

He does have a dependent.

He has parental responsibility, isn't in a relationship with the mother, is living in far from ideal conditions, and deserves to be housed.

He also deserves to be housed somewhere his daughter can stay because his parental responsibility shouldn't end because he's not housed suitably to accommodate a child.

£200 per month for food, toiletries and cleaning products isn’t much at all. Around £46 per week!

£200 a month doesn’t buy very much food, does it?

So you think being a parent, even one that doesn’t have overnights or see their child, should automatically entitle people to social housing?

This kind of situation is very real & depressing. BIL in his early 30's split with his girlfriend & had no legal right to stay at her property, they did not have children together. He works full time but cannot afford a flat/studio. His only option was a HMO/house share but it took 4 months to find one, a room in a shared house for £650 per month is massively in demand (South West) to the point where we were offering months rent upfront to help him find somewhere. His houseshare is going OK but how depressing to not have your own small space as a grown man in your 30's no wonder young men are taking their own lives 😢

Yes, what about Cathy Come Home in the 60s?

Using this logic - there are loads of council homes that could be taken from working people who choose not to afford the costs of private rentals. People sit on the housing list waiting for their number to come up, rather than hunting for a job that pays better to better afford market rates. Suspect it’s just one of the reasons the Tories can’t be arsed to build any more affordable housing.
I don’t want to pay the uplift in my mortgage, following the interest rate hike, is there a bloody list for that?

There have been a number of Mumsnet threads recently with women explaining how they could never live with a man again following a break up or divorce. The increasing number of single households is one of the reasons for the shortage of homes. This figure is likely to increase not decrease. However many new homes they build, there is such demand for them. Social Housing cannot cope with the number of people who need to be housed urgently.
I feel so sorry for the guy in the news story. There has to be more equality in housing provision in the uk.

There is a one bedroom flat on the corner of my block that has been empty for 18 months

He seems like a decent guy, hard working, a father. I imagine he is probably giving quite a lot of money to his partner and maybe paying her rent to provide for the baby too. You could easily afford to live as a single person on £27k but not as a family man. People should stay living together until they can afford to split.

I'm failing see the perks for people paid NMW in London when their rents would be double, making it even less likely for them to pass affordability checks.

Four in five suicides are by men – suicide is the biggest cause of death for men under 35 and there has been a sharp increase in the rate among men aged 35-64.

OP the article itself says that the council has declared a housing emergency, that hardly suggests it is super easy to find somewhere to live? To say the guy is deliberately homeless is also ridiculous, you have no idea of his circumstances. Maybe he's paying high maintenance to his ex for his child, maybe he has other commitments. Maybe, as he's said, he can't afford a deposit which means he can't just 'get a house share'. Even those entail hefty deposits, and in times where housing is in short supply spare rooms often have ten, twenty, thirty people competing for them. An older (non early 20s) male may not be what people are looking for.

There are 260,284 homeless men compared to 106,119 homeless women. Thus, men are the majority of individuals experiencing homelessness (70 percent) followed by women (29 percent). 2018

But he’s not without dependents, he has a child that he has PR for and a right to be able to share custody. It’s not even fair on the mother to have to have the DD 100% of the time because he can’t afford to pay CMS and have a place where his DD can stay with him.

If he were a mother, and the child were “safely housed with the father” would you be calling her a young woman with no dependents and a choosy beggar?

I think if you went into the Relationships board and told that to women who have just found out their partner has had a private dance at a strip club you would be given short shrift