To think that there is a misunderstanding about social housing.

[Bitchesbelike]

On social media, lots of people assume that people in social / council housing are getting a free house and don’t work.

i grew up in social housing: my dad worked from age 15 to 65.

my brothers have worked since they were 16 and both live in social housing.

its not “free housing”: it’s rented, affordable accommodation.

My point is that in many areas there are not more suitable properties people can move into ,some people might be desperate to move to a smaller more suitable property but there is nothing available.

Oh I have just seen the post above me where private and social housing costs a similar amount. Maybe it depends on what part of the country you are in. I’m south West and the difference is huge. Maybe in other areas there isn’t much in it.

Currently, enough funds have been released to build 18,000 social homes. Which is....something, I suppose.

But I reiterate again: the state gives a small proportion of the money required to build new HA homes. The rest comes from existing rents. So, if you are a HA tenant, rather than your rent being subsidised by the HA, you are in fact subsidising new builds for the next generation of renters. It's a virtuous circle. Take profit out of the equation and everyone wins.

I mean, I think people do realise the rent is way below market rate. So yeah you're not necessarily getting free housing, but you're definitely getting free money.

It should be reserved for people in need honestly, it's deeply unfair that one family has to pay market rate rent privately while another gets cheap rent in a council house when they both have similar incomes.

It is free for some when it's fully paid for by housing benefit.

When it isn;t free it's a hell of a lot cheaper than private rentals.

And has the security, lifetime usually, that people in private rentals can only dream of.

My step-sister has a four bedroom council house with front and back garden. That made sense when she had 5 kids at home but now it's just her and her husband she's living the dream. Cheap rent, a beautiful house and she hasn;t worked since her teens.

Yes, it's unfair. So we should be working towards everyone paying the cheaper rent, rather than everyone paying the more expensive rent.

Where is this?

I’m sure yeah. How often do they update it? Rents have sky rocketed round here

South West. Where houses and private rents are very expensive.

No, you are ignoring opportunity cost and the cost of capital/building.

Cost of capital and building is super relevant and what allows HA to turn 'a profit' that can then be used to fund future housing. Private developers and landlords don't have access to free capital. They have to borrow the money and therefore also pay interest. If social housing was built with private capital then it would incur the same problem and undoubtedly wipe out any profits. We don't have infinite cheap public money to pump into housing, especially when you consider that the money could probably sit in a bank account and earn more money on interest right now than you could get from building housing and charging an affordable rent. This is costing every tax payer a hell of a lot of money through direct funding and opportunity cost.

Add to this the fact that there is only so much cheap/ free land and housing on new estates that can be subsidised and turned into HA. Building costs are often artificially low for social housing but this is often due to factors that can't really be scaled in any meaningful way and in some cases directly rely on private tenants and buying paying more to subsidise social housing. The model doesn't work if everyone pays a lower rate.

This is why the idea that social housing is somehow a step towards everyone paying less rent is a fallacy. It is a limited finite resource that is heavily subsidised by the state and private housing/rental market.

I work in SH, there is very little "profit" to be made from rent and that goes back into the business. Just the cost of the annual compulsory gas and electric checks cost more than 3 weeks rent for my area - not to mention the management costs, repairs and upgrading carried out. I agree management costs could be lowered if we didnt have to spend so much time dealing with various tenancy issues. Small grants are given towards new house building but most of the existing stock is mortgaged to provide money to build houses for other renters.
I will say 75% of my renters are really good tenants but virtually all of the ones coming in for the last 20 years have been given property because they have issues and they cause tremendous problems. They have started to tip the balance on previously good estates.

For the same price as a HA 3 bed at approx 70% market rent, could probably private rent a 1 bed property?

I’m not on any sort of means tested benefits, so pay full SH (Housing Association ) rent myself.

I have never claimed benefits of any sort. I’m retired now.

I pay £900 every four weeks for a two bed garden flat.

Its not really that much cheaper than a private let - but I’ve got a tenancy for life.

I’m in a London/North Kent borough.

Private rents are set by the open market. SH does not have to operate in the open market and does not have to cover the same costs. Stock is cheaper to buy or build due to government grants / loans. The loans they are servicing are cheaper as they’re not buy to let mortgages with ridiculous interest rates. Repairs/ improvements are cheaper due to economies of scale.

To be very clear, I am pro social housing and agree with you that providing cheaper housing for people while they need it (not forever), is a good use of public funds. But it’s completely disingenuous not to recognize that rents are cheaper because costs are subsidized by grants / loans and other income streams. If SH had to operate on the open market the rents would inevitably be much much higher.

Right to buy caused huge problems but there's an idea it was just a greedy Thatcharite policy when it was much more complex than that and involved a lot of councils not having the money to do the necessary checks, repairs and upgrades on council properties so it was easier and of course, profitable to sell.

NC for this but I work in local Government in social housing and in my area at least the right to buy has decimated the available housing stock - what we have left is poorly built post war housing which is falling apart and riddled with damp and which lack of funding means we cannot afford to cover basic things like windows and roofs -we contract out which means they largely have us over a barrel as far as costing goes.

We are fire fighting constantly in terms of trying to provide a decent living standard but coming up against tenants time after time who cannot afford to heat their homes adequately means the damp problems worsen in an ever diminishing way with regards to people’s living conditions and health.

The tenants are mostly ( not all, but mostly) in receipt of UC to cover their rent, their socio economic status means that a lot are poorly educated with no recourse to or encouragement to train or re-enter education in any way. So job prospects are limited and the cycle continues.

We have thousands of people not paying their rent or in substantial rent arrears - yes, even though their rent is £95 a week in some cases it doesn’t take long to amass thousands of pounds of debt. And we try our level best not to evict them because guess what ? Then we have a duty of care to house them as homeless, so you end up with a family in a one room bedsit in sheltered accommodation and trying to access the housing resister which won’t do anything about them because we don’t have the space or available housing to accomodate them because we don’t have any one bed flats to downsize the people in their 60s who are still living in 3 and 4 bedroom houses into and even if we did they won’t move because they have secure tenancies and “ don’t see why they should”.

its an absolute clusterfuck which needs billions of pounds investing in new local authority housing in the short term and education, job creation and wealth distribution in the long term. None of which will ever happen as successive governments either cut funding to the bone or ignore the very real social reasons as to why why need this sort of housing in the first place.

So is mine.. I know there are sink estates, but I’ve never lived in one. I look after my home - I’ve replaced the bathroom and kitchen here, with permission, because my HA is very slow with upgrading.

All good, as I want to life in a nice place.

I moved into my 2 bed housing association flat 13 yes ago with my 2DDs we were homeless to circumstance with Ex. my current rent in London is £1170. I work full time all rent bills are covered by me I looked into downsizing to a 1 bedroom as both dds left but the rent isn't much cheaper and no 1 beds in my area available. It's my home I look after it and am a good tennant. I have worked hard and not on a bad wage now but there is no way I would be able to even rent a 1 bed private in London. What do you suggest I move into a house share at the age of 56. It's my home.

I understand you feel like it’s your home but it isn’t, you haven’t brought it and it wasn’t built for one lone woman. There is countless women with (as an example) two young daughters living in one hotel room waiting years for a property like yours. You should downsize to a one bedroom or if London is to expensive than move out of London and commute.

Yep Then the usual fuckers on here moaned at ppl who had downsized for not having a spare room to self isolate in during Covid. SH tenants cant win,

Its always the same on here People pretending they care about families living in hotels when thats bullshit because on other threads they say people should not be having kids that they cant afford. Which proves they dont give a shit about families in hotels They just want to use them to bash social housing tenants

I see a lot of people talking about unfairness.

The real people getting shafted here are the low to middle income private renters. It is unfair that most of these people's incomes are going on renting something that is unsecure and worth far less than it is.

The answer isn't to make sure that people in social housing suffer equally. It's to make sure a job is sufficient to pay private rent and have money left to live on.

We need more availability of social housing. Then private landlords simply wouldn't be able to charge what they do, not when a market rate property was also available.

I disagree, I’d have zero issue with a low/middle income couple living in a one bedroom council house. My issue is that couple staying in a three bedroom council house when there children left home 15 years ago. I don’t blame people for taking advantage of being allowed to do this, but it isn’t right.

I am sick of this type of post appearing on benefits and SH threads. Yes of course in an ideal world everyone has access to the support, money or housing they need and want. In the real world, someone has to fund this and public money is finite. So there will always only be so much social housing and it undoubtedly won't be enough to meet demand. This is why how it's allocated matters and we can't just kid ourselves that we can get around this by just building more.

https://www.radioexe.co.uk/news-and-features/local-news/councils-social-rent-error-sparks-outrage/

A government regulator has criticised a Devon council for “serious failings” after it overcharged its social housing tenants for more than two decades to the tune of £7.5 million.
Mid Devon District Council reported itself to the Regulator for Social Housing (RSH) last year when an audit unearthed an issue with how it had calculated, and therefore charged, rent to its tenants.
The council, which has roughly 3,000 social housing homes, has overcharged more than 1,200 tenants a combined £7.5 million since 2002.
However, it has sought legal advice which it has said means it will only need to repay six years’ worth of overpaid rent to individual tenants, which it has estimated would total up to around £1.8 million.