To live in a council house?

[mrsruffallo]

Many people who live in council houses got to work, raise their children well, and are quite normal.
A recent thread made me laugh about the misconceptions regarding council tenants. A poster actually described them as homes for the umemployable, or words to that effect.
I am in my thirties, a sahm, professional husband, no asbos, bright, healthy children.

Can I clear up any Daily Mail views for anyone?

It does need to be shaken up yes But this doesn't mean that everyone in a council house should be unemployed with 10 kids and sitting on their arse all day smoking fags on their front doorstep!!

Sorry thats pretty crap sterotyping but you get my point

Upwind, there is no subsidy. Just because the council rents are lower doesn't mean taxpayers are paying the difference, it just means that private rentals are more expensive because by and large they are rented out by amateur landlords who want to make a profit. Because of this the taxpayer pays more of a subsidy through higher levels of housing benefit being paid to those who need to rent privately.

The whole sorry bloody mess was started by that fucking Thatcher woman who was not only instrumental in the sell off of huge numbers of council houses, but by changing the tenancy laws in favour of the landlord.

Upwind-I think the benefits and housing needs to be shaken up, I agree it needs modernising.

I agree magnolia.

Upwind - it's only a subsidy in the same way that not spending £50 on a new bag makes you £50 better off. By not having that flat in the private sector, we are depriving a potential landlord of £300 in extra revenue.

But it does not mean £300 of taxes are being paid to the council to support that person's rent.

LMD- Excatly. There is no subsidy.

Reforming the private tenancy laws does not seem to have been on our Labour government's agenda. Nor has sorting out the mess that is social housing. And they facilitated a bubble in house prices

I am not sure that the Tories would have been able to get away with causing such a crisis.

"amateur landlords who want to make a profit"

LOL at that...any private landlord wants to make a profit. You have to take into account that apart from people who have tons of properties...many people now have high interest buy to let mortgages so before you start they have to cover the cost of this.

The whole benefit system needs overhauling so that it subsidises income rather than replacing it. It should never be more financially beneficial to stay at home rather than work.

SPLUTTER!!!*

Didn't one of the most famous Tories, lovely Mrs T, directly cause the current crisis in social housing?

Agree that Labour have not helped much, with their 'we believe in socialism, oh no hang on we're capitalists, oh no hang on we're not sure' approach.

But really.

Believe me LMD, it is a subsidy in every real sense. By not having a flat in the private sector you are simply ensuring that the private landlord of the person who could have had your place gets paid rent in housing benefits.

But the real problem is not the subsidy but allowing the sell off and non-replacement of the UK's social housing stock!

LMD - Exactly. As I said, the council estate I grew up on is now almost entirely in private hands - so how do people on "normal" jobs get a house?

Mrs T has an awful lot to answer for . . .

whilst some council estates or much worse than years ago, apparently some are actually a lot better. according to the housing person in my area it's because a lot of them are now privately owned so don't have "the same sort of people" living in them as before - whatever that means.

I am no fan of Mrs T but she left power almost 20 years ago. I don't see how she can be blamed for the current situation. If Labour disagreed with her policies they have had plenty of time to reform them. They chose not to.

"By not having a flat in the private sector you are simply ensuring that the private landlord of the person who could have had your place gets paid rent in housing benefits."

I'm not sure what you're saying here Upwind - can you clarify?

I've never disputed that housing benefit is a subsidy, but housing benefit is not linked in any way to council houses. You qualify for a council house - that's one thing.

You're eligible for housing benefit - that's another. Your housing benefit goes towards your rent whether you're in the private sector or not.

Labour did choose not to - but it is also VERY difficult to claw back thousands and thousands of houses which have passed into private hands. Can you imagine how expensive it would have been to buy back all these house which were sold off at tuppence ha'penny?

Hence why lots of new social housing has had to be built, but you know what, we're running out of space.

What Mrs T did was pretty much irreversible. A bit like privatising the bl**dy railways, another masterstroke. NOT.

i am currently housed in social housing

dh and i both work
have degrees
decent wage

no benefits here.

HB is not linked - as the previous poster said.

Wilywombat - that's my point! It's the individuals who have high interest buy to let mortgages that I am talking about. They want to have their high interest buy to let mortgages covered by the rent they charge so that they can walk away at the end of 25 years with their large lump sum intact. Many of the tenants renting their property will have been in receipt of housing benefits and so the taxpayer ends up funding their reirement nest egg. If tenants could afford these hugely inflated rents in the first place, then many of them would buy their own properties.

As for the Tories not getting away with causing a house price bubble - eehm I bought my first house in the late 80's and the situation then was worse than it is currently - although I suspect we have not peaked this time yet.

i agree that the only way to get people off benefits and into work is to make benefits less than what you could get working for £5 an hour.

weeeeeell - yu say irriversible - once someone goes from a secured tenancy to another council house the tenancy gets changed to am assured and they lose the right to buy

this is the way that HA's claw it back,

i had right to buy once - bu couldn'tsee the point in buying a house in the middle of a shithole.

Mrs Thatcher most certainly can be blamed for the current council housing shortage. Although I do agree that the labour government could be doing more, the situation cannot be resolved overnight or even over 20 years.

But you know what, nappyaddict, the welfare state has to make a decision as to what is a reasonable standard of living to expect people to have when out of work. Either you support people who are out of work, or you don't, you don't fling them a crust and say 'there, that should just about give you enough energy to find a job, you wastrel.'

Especially if they have children.

It's carrot and stick, isn't it - do you beat people with poverty (hey, let's go back to the workhouse days), or encourage people back to work with the carrot of earnings, status, career etc..

i think this argument comes down to who decides what te deserving poor are

should only those i reciept of benefits be allowed social housing ?

should there be a savings limit?

i know of an older couple who rent a flat in brighton. they are sisters and both have wuite nice pensions thank you ver much.

they of course cannot buy at this time and spend their retirement going on frequent cruises!

one could in effect have substantial savings and get a council house - there isn't a law.

I was told when we began fostering that the fact that we lived in a council house was an advantage.

I queried this and was told people with children in care felt inadequate if carers lived in "big private houses" They got on better with fellow tenants so to speak.

Just sounded like reverse snobbishness to me but there you go

Upwind, your neighbour who was unemployed was not getting housing benefit because she lived in a council flat. If you became unemployed you would be equally entitled to HB for your privately rented flat, though, instead of the taxpayer paying £400 which went to the council to maintain properties for people on low incomes, the same taxpayer (poor sod!) would be paying £700 to fund your private landlord's retirement package.
There is no subsidy for council housing.