To think housing in this country is fundamentally broken?

[BrokenHousingLogic]

Whether you rent privately, rent socially or own, it feels like the system isn’t really working for anyone.

• Rents are high and insecure
• Buying is out of reach for many
• Social housing is under strain
• Landlords and tenants feel pitted against each other
• Local authorities seem overwhelmed

It often feels like people are arguing with each other instead of addressing the fact that the whole structure is failing.

AIBU to think this goes beyond individual choices and points to a system-wide problem?

If you make a bad choice, who do you blame?

How should those unable to ever work full time be housed ?
In the private sector with profits removed from the funding system
or in Social Housing ?

I know many people who have never / will never work through no fault of their own
they NEED housing
it should be provided at the least cost to the taxpayer

You said bad choices in "life, career and marriage".
Life can throw all sorts at us... some of it totally unavoidable. No one goes into a career or marriage knowing it will go wrong further down the line. Yes, my ex cheating on me after nearly a decade was my fault. I should have known he would do that from the start, eh?

Agreed. Particularly if they are not making the effort to improve their lives and blaming someone else for their choices.

Of course it is not your fault and I am sorry you have had a cheating ex. However, that doesn't mean you can't work or date again. It also means you have to step up financially. It is hardly the problem of someone else.

"Blaming someone else for their choices" does not make sense.

As a heavily populated country and the restrictions on building in many areas this has been the case for a long time.

More people, less infrastructure, cities and towns are bulging, council houses became a available to buy.

If someone doesn't take personal responsibility for their choices, aren't they blaming something else?

If not, what reason is there for making poor choices?

You said someone.
And your life has clearly been blessed if you can not understand why people make bad choices, or understand why not everyone can have a career.

Yes, things like hospitals not expanding, or more being built, is a problem where I live. The population here is just too much for the infrastructure we have.

Which is yet another argument for social housing
integrated into infrastructure and services
rather than relying on s106 and CIL and the goodwill of developers

Not true. When I chose the wrong guy or wrong job it was down to me. No one else.

Why are you trying to absolve yourself from all responsibility for any of your life choices?

Sometimes it is, in fact, almost always, you can trace back people who "appear" to have made poor choices back to upbring, poverty.... i mean if your parent has told you from the moment you were born that education is pointless, don't read to you as a kid, the available money is spent on booze an fags, that teachers write you off, then your entire life is blighted.

So whilst i agree that any job should be better than no job, its not always that simple, if you can't read/write, have no skills... can't get treatment for MH issues...
What then? a carer, which society deems as almost worthless (based on the pay, less than NMW when travel time is taken into consideration) requires a lot of skill, a carer will be expected to give out prescription drugs, on time, in the righ dose, recognise illness etc etc.

Then of course there is childcare....

i think you read the Mail a bit too much

Did you know it was wrong at the time?
I try to live by 'shit happens'. I have had relationships and jobs that did not work out. It was not my fault, and I am not going to blame myself, or be told I should be blaming myself, for that. That would be undoing years of therapy for starters.

Im in H/A and im very blessed to have low rent for my small 2 bed flat just for me.

Disability can happen in an instant.
Being widowed can happen in an instant.

Anybody who judges those who become disabled or bereaved
and thus find all previous finances crumbled to dust
can do one

Fucks sake, the ignorance about how those dependent on UC is astounding.

You don't get all your rent covered. You get your LHA idea of what your rent should be, and no more. It is in many cases around 150.00 to 200.00 LESS than your actual rent. You make up the shortfall from the 400 quid meant to cover basic living costs - utilities and food, unless you're in the "unable to work" category which gives you an extra 300.00 or so if you are a single person. You may qualify for council tax relief.

If you achieve the holy grail of employment, say a "full time" job on minimum wage, any benefit is cancelled out by the cost of council tax and getting to your job.

Trust me, I know. I've done every calculation I can to figure out how to improve my situation at knocking on 57, having had four years of curve balls, not limited to but including my DP dying unexpectedly, losing my business due to economic decline, having to move from the house we shared into a tiny one bed flat out of town with all those associated costs, plus at the same time navigating my Dad's homelessness and declining health following my SM going batshit and ending their marriage at 85 and 82 respectively, then this year in a three month period I lost my Dad, my dementia ridden MIL and my Uncle.

So I apologise for my "bad choices" and the fact that my age, gaps in CV and a host of other impediments mean I'm leaching off the tax payer and I'm stuck in Groundhog Day.

And finding a guarantor, even for a bedsit or HMO isn't easy due to income thresholds, home owning requirements, and people naturally unwilling to take on the liability of someone else's rent.

The housing market is broken.

Yes, my parents didn't see the point in uni. They were brought up to leave school and go straight into menial work. We were told that office work is not real work. I was the same. My dad retired after a lifetime of low paid work. I have only ever had NMW wage jobs.
It was nothing to do with making bad choices, but not being shown that there were other choices out there.

Oh, some on here have an answer for that. You "should have got insurance".

If we compare England to say Norway...more people live in London than the whole of that country.

Many years ago there was a lady on the ebay boards
whose husband died slowly and painfully of throat cancer
he had all sorts of insurance but none for what happened
she could not insure herself for what happened to him

so she went from overseas holidays and private schools
to rented flats
in the space of two years

IIRC his name was Andy

Also: trains.

For many very tedious reasons I find myself renting a bedsit 25 minutes by train from my place of (full-time) work. The flat itself is more expensive than I’d hoped, but the train journey costs slightly less than 30quid a day! I’ve taken a six month lease and am treating it like a sort of holiday. The town i'm in is a great improvement on where i was before (an hour’s cheap bus ride from work). Why the actual chuff is British travel infrastructure so pants? Why try to cram everyone into over crowded, unhealthy, under resourced hell-holes, when some of the problems could be alleviated by sensible transport planning and fares?

Why did they not make provisions for this possibility? Life insurance? Sickness insurance? That’s what responsible people do. It’s like not insuring your house then bleating about being financially ruined when it burns to the ground. Responsibility for your own actions.

It’s a shame but that’s on her. I assume she’s got savings and a mortgage paid off if she’s burning through money on private school though. I’m covered. My husband’s covered. Everyone I know has this sort of cover. You’d be a fool not to.

Not everyone has the means to incorporate such insurance into their monthly budger. Not everyone meets the criteria for the right insurance for the particular circumstance. I can't get life insurance because I was sectioned due to psychosis once. I have a piddly funeral plan instead, and never put my heating on. My late DP had undiagnosed cancer when it killed him really suddenly.

Being responsible isn't as easy as you make out.