Social housing - unfair reputation

[LinRuns]

We moved into a new build area a few months ago and a lot of people ‘warned’ us about the levels of social housing. We loved the house we were buying so looked beyond this.

I have to say - everyone there has been lovely, regardless of whether they own or are in social housing. Just normal people who mostly work and are polite.

This has made me think - is the stigma actually quite unfair?

how you pay for where you live should not make a difference.
and paying a mortgage will give you capital that those who rent will not have as well as Security

@UnderratedCabbage Its a similar story in an estate the next town over it used to be nice lots of people / their families lived there since it was new 50+ years ago. Then the council moved in drug addicts there were lots of issues and complaints but slowly the older tenants have moved out to sheltered housing. The families moved out to new build HA accommodation and now it’s like the badlands. I think the idea was mixing tenants needing support into an established community would lift them up rather than housing everyone needing support in one place. maybe it is successful in some places but not there.

What do you mean how you pay? I'm just saying with these new estates I'd be pissed if my rent or mortgage cost two or three times as much for the same house as someone across the street especially if neighbour across the street is engaging in constant irritating behaviour.

Not saying all council/housing association tenants are irritating before you accuse me of being a snob like I said I grew up in one and mother still lives there complaining when her rent goes up by peanuts each year. She did not believe me when I told her I know someone private renting an identical flat to hers across the road for three times as much.

I live in a small gated close once. There were about 22. houses and flats . 2 of gem were social housing but they weren't identical to the private ones. The rooms were smaller and the interiors were more basic plus they didn't have drives. A friend of mine lived in one and her rent was about £20 a month less than my mortgage

It wouldn't work though. Think of the saying that it only takes one bad apple in a bag to ruin the other good ones

Don’t live in social housing or near social housing. In both our houses we’ve had some very problematic neighbours indeed. Idiots come in all income brackets!

That's fair enough I've had people online say similar to me before and I'm not calling anyone a liar but I've never experienced it a new estate has been built in my town and quite a few of my friends have moved there some housing association and some with mortgages and some regular renter's and theres no difference in the houses other than the housing association houses are way way cheaper.

My mother's flat was built in the sixties or seventies I think, her rent is straight up a third of what some of her privately renting neighbours pay. I find it hard to buy it when people insist their council rent is almost as much as private rent mainly because my mother tries saying the same thing 😂

I think new build social housing has higher rent. Saw one ( 2 bed)advertised at £230 a week which isn't that cheap ( not London )

The arsehole on my road (badly parked cars all over the place but complains about other people's visitors or carers parking on the street, goes out and leaves teenage daughters to have noisy parties and is generally a rude argumentative arsehole) owns the most expensive house.

It’s not just social housing that you can find pests. I remember going for a coffee at the home of a school mum friend. Beautiful house in a lovely cul de sac. We sat in the garden listening to the people next door screaming “cuuuunt” at each other. Another example are neighbours of a relative. Rows and plate smashing that goes on for hours. Lots of people don’t give a fuck wherever they live and it’s getting worse.

It does put me of buying a new build. If you’ve been a landlord you know why they prefer people not on benefits.

I’ve lived on two separate ‘estates’. I lived in a council studio flat on a ‘rough’ estate. It was literally the stereotype of a council estate, people fighting, drugs, the shop on the estate getting robbed at knifepoint. My next door neighbour had social services and the police at the door every week. It made me understand the reason why people hated council tenants, though there was people like me and my other neighbour who just minded our own business and worked and came home in our own little ‘normal’ bubble. So there’s good and bad but because you can hear and see the bad, it makes the good look non existent.

i now live in a two bed council flat on a ‘posh’ estate. The two small blocks of flat here, we all pay over £1k in rent to the council. We are just normal people and if you came here you wouldn’t realise they are council homes (because they’re looked after) or council tenants because no one causes trouble or gives that impression.

its the people associated with the council properties - it’s sad that the bad people give the bad name to council tenants when most of us are just average people paying our landlord who just so happens to be the council.

I grew up in council housing. No way I’m living near one now.

Surely benefits is a different thing to council tenants though. People in private rentals can get benefits also
Could have people who get benefits who are perfectly nice, normal people. You can get homeowners your behave antisocially.

Not all social housing tenants are in receipt of benefits

The stigma is justified
I have a number of neighbours in social housing who are awful

Same. Would avoid at all costs.

I had a next door neighbour who was a right PITA. Rubbish in garden, noise, smashed window boarded up etc. Not a council tenant though, they owned the place.

Scummy people come in my walks of life

Our road has 40 houses, 10 are social housing. All of our neighbours are lovely.

I live in a new build. Bought knowing that the developers Barratt had put in a certain % of affordable rent. No problem. The families in those homes seem great. Sadly when Liz truss ruined the economy Barratt decided to sell a load of houses in bulk to a different housing association and it’s been hell ever since. Drug dealers, shouting, fights and even shooting each other with BB guns. We had to call 999 last night after listening to a family screaming obscenities in the street for an hour before starting a physical fight. The private owners are rightly unimpressed and selling up where they can. We can’t afford the loss.

i know ill be called a snob but i do think there is a stigma. Its often unfair as many of the families here are great but the only trouble on this estate has come from sh tenants.

Like most things it's partially rooted in truth. You've obviously got lucky.

Personally I would not buy a house near lots of SH.

There’s a lovely new estate where I walk through to the local woods. It’s glaringly obvious which houses are social housing. Rubbish dumped in the front gardens, broken garden furniture just thrown out, generally scruffy and unkempt.

Growing up in central Scotland in the 70s/80s my primary school class of 30, 28 of us lived in council housing. I thought that was just the Normal. Gardens all nice and kept. I might have just saw it with my young eyes. It was all nice a clean and safe.
These days going round the same housing estates, it’s a bloody mess. Plus they seem to give the new council houses to a lot of junkies and folk that have no desire to work. Why not put working families in these new houses.

Yes. But they were the exception. Society HAS changed. There is an attitude of entitlement now as the norm, and there are no police anywhere, so the criminal element are brazen and aggressive. The atmosphere has changed, the “ mind your own business” culture means that there are no standards of wellness out there to conform to. People swear at their children in public defiantly, with a “ what you gonna do about it” vibe. It’s horrible. They have the right to walk about the street in their pyjamas and park their cars to block you in. It’s their right, isn’t it?
Tragic use of rights, I know!

I can spot the social housing folk a mile off usually. Just have the place and garden looking like a shit tip

of course not all are like that but it’s astonishing how many are and they just take no pride in anything at all. Baffling