.. in thinking that the local council should NOT consider a living room to be a "second bedroom"

[fedupandisolated]

I mean it's really NOT right is it? It seems commonplace round here to consider a one bedroom flat as having two bedrooms by including the living room as another sleeping place. I've several families on my books who are DESPERATE for a move into bigger accommodation and have all been told there is little or no chance of that happening. I've written letters for some families (I know they do no good but at least I feel I am offering a tiny bit of support).
It's just totally crap that a family can be in a one bedroom flat with one or two children and have no chance of getting anything bigger.
I won't mention the damp and mould which affect some of the flats these families have the misfortune to live in.
How can this be right - in this day and age?
The more I look around at the housing crisis, the lack of affordable decent housing and the crap condition of some houses - the more I think Maggie and the selling off of council housing was the worst bloody thing which ever happened to this country.
Here we are in 2008 - a lack of housing and families with no decent place to live.

Rant over.

[serenity]

To answer MsHighwaters earlier post (if that's OK )

I live in London and have a 2 bedroom flat. DS1, DS2 and DD share a bedroom - DS's actually share a bed (triple bunk - single on the top, small double underneath) We are on the transfer list and do get 'overcrowding' points, but it means bugger all as there are many other families in my borough with the same problems. we have a bidding system here, maybe 2 or 3 properties come up a week and they're being chased by 200+ families (you can see how many bids there are)

Despite DS1 being really too old to share with his sister we can't get prioritised for a transfer or extra points because legally the council can view our living room as a room to sleep in. At some stage, I'd imagine sooner rather than later, we're going have to spend money we can't really afford, to get a sofa bed so the boys can sleep in our room and DD can can have the small room to herself. We can't afford to rent privately (we struggle now, and to rent a 3 bed place that isn't council will cost an extra £1k pm) we definitely can't afford to buy. We're stuffed.

Fedupandisolated, can I just say I heart you

[serenity]

Oh and I forgot No YA so NBU.

[Debs75]

We have a 3 bed house with seperate dining room so it is described as 3/4 bed. The problem is the council say we can have 9 and 1/2 people in the house. Kids under 10 are counted as half and babies under 1 aren't counted at all. We've been told that you can have someone sleeping in the bath, they don't take into account the posessions people need i think they just mark out your house like the slave ships used to and think how many can we squash in.
incidentally a couple I know had 8 children squashed into a tiny 3 bed house and were refused a move. There isn't enough larger houses around especially affordable ones.

[expatinscotland]

suedo, i hope you like it!

it was one of those books i picked up by accident rather than intention.

my landlords left some books and i got desperate once and couldn't make it to the library.

[expatinscotland]

my ILs just couldn't seem to believe that there is no more social housing available.

they didn't get why we wanted to leave Edinburgh.

then SIL left her partner and they realise just how utterly fucked you are when it comes to finding suitable housing to rent affordably, even if you work. 'No DSS'.

[fedupandisolated]

So it seems the problems are countrywide then.
It's just crap isn't it.

[expatinscotland]

Well, I'm a born cynic, but nothing will ever change.

There's just no money in it and hte culture has a deeply-ingrained penchant for home ownership.