Calls for Help Freeing Up Family Homes

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

Free Up Family Homes The charity 'The Intergenerational Foundation' is recommending tax breaks to encourage older people to leave oversized homes. They estimate that there are 25 million unused bedrooms in England. Half of over 65's have 2 or more spare rooms in their home. Housing minister Grant Shapps doesn't sound keen on the idea. But what do you think? Should home-owners and tenants be encouraged to trade down for public-spirited reasons? Or should they be able to rattle around in their multiple spare bedrooms and left alone?

I think Xenia was saying earlier that the councils refused to spend the money on new homes. I am confused (and conveniently setting you up for battle).

No the money was not used to build more homes. It was prohibited. Although I was of age to vote then (and used to have protected time off work to go on protest marches!) I never knew why there was a prohibition. Someone on MN explained it once, I think it was explained as a way of punishing for Labour controlled councils? It's never made any sense to me, but I'd never put anything past the Tories.

" Show them an alternative way"?
How patronising!

I don't think I would want to move from my large, lovely home into a tiny flat or bungalow!

I will move to the smallest 1 bed flat I can as soon as DS is 25 years old (or when he wants to settledown/get married/partnership). He gets everything I have then.

I remember working with a group of people in the 90's and they were all busy boasting about how they had bought their council houses dirt cheap and they were worth loads meanwhile DH and I were struggling to buy our first property whilst the government were busy getting rid of the last remaining MIRAS.

some supposedly poor people did very nicely. I think the money should have been put back into council housing.

I don't think more families with children live in poverty, than the elderly despite any Guardian article saying otherwise. Average pension income is very low. Most old people do not live in large houses with lots of bed rooms. Plenty live on very low state pensions.

Most people in the UK never could or did buy a house. We might have had an aberration whilst people spent spent spent and thought they had a human right to live in a designer home but that was all pie in the sky and not surprisingly the bubble burst.

Good for you , Iggly.
I couldn't bear that so will stay put and rattle, as is my prerogative!

Beware your children resenting you .

Yes, just like I resent mine, theirs, eh?

Mine are being raised to stand on their own two feet and make their own way in the world. Not raised to expect a huge hand out from us at 25.

Xenia:UK poverty statistics
Overall

The proportion of pensioners who live in low-income households is much lower than a decade ago, the proportion for children is a bit lower, and the proportion for working-age adults without dependent children is a bit higher.

The rates for both children and pensioners both started falling in about 1998/99, with the rates for pensioners falling more sharply from 2002/03. In both cases, however, the reductions ceased in 2004/05 and, for children at least, rates have risen since then.

Children remain much more likely to live in low-income households than either pensioners or working-age adults.

Children

* The proportion of children living in low-income households (using the low-income threshold of the 60% of median income after deducting housing costs) fell from 34% of all children in 1996/97 to 28% in 2004/05 before rising to 30% by 2008/09.
* Children are still much more likely to live in low-income households than adults: 30% compared to 20%.
* The relatively high proportion of living in low-income households does not end when childhood formally ends (at age 16, or age 18 for those in full-time education) but continues undiminished through to age 21.

Pensioners

* The proportion of pensioners living in low-income households fell from 29% of all pensioners in 1996/97 to 16% by 2008/09, with the sharpest falls from 2002/03 to 2004/05.
* Pensioners are now less likely to be living in low-income households than non-pensioners - at 16%, their rate is lower than that for working-age adults (21%) and much lower than that for children (30%).
* Most of the fall has been among single pensioners rather than pensioner couples (also see the indicators on low income by family type and low income among pensioners.

Slacking 9 to 5:
I think there is an age gap between us. I know I will not have the family I would choose due to the financial circumstances of this country and the failures of those in charge. It makes me bitter (I act happy around extended family eg my mum and dad, but resent this country and previous generations-emigration calls).I choose to help my son so if he chooses to have more than one child he can. That will be the greatest gift I can give him.

I dunno Iggly, I'm mid forties, 4 kids.

I would love a change in circumstances eg affordable living so DS does not need a"handout" but doubt it. I will look at average housing to average earnings ratio.

late 20's.

It is just going to get worse. Student tuition fees etc.

They were bad enough for me and dh .

My children will have to rent or save to buy like all children. I don't consider that a bad life lesson.
We won't be handing them housing on a plate although they can stay with us as long as they like.

What about family, fertility drops from 27 onwards.

It very hard to save when rents are high.

What I don't understand is how any parent, in all conscience, can stand by and watch their children struggle to house themselves while they themselves rattle around in the family home. Why don't more extended families stay in the one house? I know many children move away for work etc., but if they are local surely it makes sense for the house to be shared?

Maybe further down thread somebody explained exactly why this idea about flooding the market with expensive houses is going to help people onto the first rung of the ladder? I must have missed it so if anyone knows the answer could they please enlighten me?

Oh I would never tell DS about this.

Slacking9to5 - same here. It's not so much ideological - I seriously doubt we will be in a position to provide monetary help for them to get on the housing ladder themselves - but we can and will provide a home for as long as they need it.

I guess it helps that I only have one child then.

I totally agree gaelicsheep, there is a level of disbelief that the older generation can 'abandon' us in this way but they didn't ask for this situation either. They just bought a house, with the mortgage that they could afford. It's not their fault it's suddenly worth twenty times what they bought it for and their children can't afford a decent home.

It is wrong though, I think when I'm older I would jump at the chance to downsize and move close to my grandchildren (whether they may be) or move in with them if it were possible.

All this nuclear family lark is a bit idealistic and unachievable really, but we somehow still buy into it.

iggly - I think your plan is a really lovely thing to do for your son. :-) I guess we will have worked too hard by then to make our house into (hopefully) a lovely family home to want to give it up to strangers. My thinking is I would rather have a home that remains a base for us and one or both of our children and their families, than sell it and have each one of us living in isolation in a shoebox.

I should think this is the thinking of most people who hang onto the family home, although as I said earlier I know there are people who kick their children out to stand on their own two feet which I find abhorrent.