Fucking Fucking Tories want to make me homeless

[BeingFluffy]

Just watching some Tory cunt on Newsnight. I live in a London Borough (and have done all my life) which has a lot of ordinary people in social housing, but is very fashionable among the rich. Apparently the Housing Trust (which was set up to house local people like me in the 1960s) should stop "indulging" people like me and be forced sell off my home. Where the fuck are we supposed to go? They are born with silver spoons in their mouths and don't have the faintest fucking idea about ordinary people.

Fredspurtle you would think that wouldn't you, but my sister who lives up north was bidding for a 2 bed for over 2 years whilst living with my other sister in a 1 bed flat.

I'm not entirely sure why she didn't get a private let, seeing that these can be as cheap as ha rents but what the hey, maybe for the security of a long term let.

We have just had a leaflet from the landlord about periodic rentals, apparently new tenants will be subject to review ever so often, not sure of the details of the review mind (council/ha tenant). I'm not sure how I feel about this tbh.

building fresh stock would also mean more employment for the building trade
sometimes i dont think much has changed since i grew up in a council flat my family on a waiting list for best part of 20 yrs to get into a house from a cramped flat lol
needless to say i had to buy a house no chance of a council let unless i was homeless pregnant etc

Redbindy

Hating the tories is not a sport, it's part of any reasonable persons DNA.

I don't think "reason" has come in to the discussion where Tory-haters are concerned. It's all emotion and bigotry and reason isn't even a distant second.

Putting Housing Trusts (which may have legal covenants preventing their transfer to private hands) and occupied dwellings, I cannot see the issue with considering this proposal. It isn't fair that one family should occupy a dwelling worth many £££'s whilst the waiting list has many waiting.

It is reasonable that funding should be sought by exploiting market forces.
Flog the draughy Victorian terraces and 60's flats to those that can afford it and create modern, fuel efficient homes with gardens for families.

The existence of large parts of the suburbs is a consequence of creating post-war affordable family housing. In my town there are several brown field sites which are close to loads of amenities that could be used to create new housing. New houses don't cost anything like as much to build as buying existing property, especially if created as a large scale project benefitting from economies of scale.

Crucial to all this will of course be that money raised isn't squandered on administrative overhead, and that surrounding infrastructure such as schools, roads, hospitals etc can support the incoming population.

I hold no brief for the Tories BUT...OP - you live in North Kensington. My dh and I both work. Can we live there too? No, because we can't afford it.

As it happens the policy is NOT that you will be evicted so you have nothing to grouse about but in any case it wouldn't hurt you to remember that you live in an enormously privileged position.

Partisan politics gets in the way of being able to look at policies, politicians and proposals objectively. It hampers all reasonable debate. I'm glad I gave up "I love Labour so must hate all Tories" during the last administration. I feel much more reasonable.

yeah, as if the money will be used to build new social housing! Just like the Right to Buy money was...not. I have read wealthy people writing about what a waste it is that poor people live in my very central London area and should be decanted -so that Central London becomes ever more a playground of the super-rich. But we love it here - and yes, we do actually use the museums and parks, even though I have read it implied that we are not worthy of or interested in those things that are close to us.

How far away we are from the '60s and '70s ideal of mixed communities - who would start a project like Coin Street or the Brunswick Centre now? Instead, let's just make life more miserable for the poor - and set the not quite so poor against them, by arguing ....'well I can't afford to live there, so I'd rather Lord and Lady Posh and Posh did'. As if that helps anyone.

It's a policy that is only likely to work in the South East though.
What do they propose for the rest of the country?
A million pounds where I live (mining town in Yorkshire) would buy you 10 x 3 bed semi detached with gardens and parking. Or 15 x 2 bed terraces with on street parking and a yard.

I think probably work best in London - because it would be controlled by councils so there would have to be a huge disparity of house prices within one borough to make it worth while.

In places like Shoreditch, where house prices were relatively reasonable 10 years ago, prices have shot up beyond belief so the council have now find themselves sitting on housing stock worth millions and millions. The London house market has bucked all the national trends. Even compared to other areas of the south east.

FWIW I don't think areas benefit from becoming playgrounds to the super rich. But I also don't think it's economically practical to house one family in a house in say Fulham when that house could be sold and more families could found properties and come off the waiting lists. I would never support someone saying poorer families are unworthy of living in certain areas. But I do think if a house comes free in a pricier location why not sell it and buy in an area where the money stretches further and could benefit a larger number of people.

I wonder what people on waiting lists in inadequate temporary accommodation would think?

But we love it here - and yes, we do actually use the museums and parks...

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That's very nice for you I'm sure but why are you more entitled to that than anyone else? I'd love to live in London so that DH didn't have to spend up to 4 hours a day commuting in to work. I'd love to have access to those parks and museums just as much as you. We can't afford it though.

It's not a question of the poor being undeserving of living in highly desirable locations, just that they are no more deserving than anyone else just because they are poor.

BeingFluffy, if your flat could fetch £1000 per week on the comerical market and you are not paying that then its a hell of a subsidy. Do you have a special reason to live in London. (Ie. are you a teacher, nurse, fireperson etc.) Surely employers of no key workers should pay a salary to enable people to commute or pay a realistic rent. Or prehaps these employers should be encouraged to relocate to somewhere like Yorkshire.

£1000 per week could pay for a private rented 3 bedroom house in many parts of the country. I think it would be more effective to address homelessness as a national problem rather by London brough. It would also make it easier for low income families to move to find work.

I don't think the flats should be not be sold off, but rented at commerical rates to the highest bidder. The housing association could then subsidise 4 families to live in a 3 bed house outside London. (Prehaps more as the families would be paying some rent, just not £1000 per month) Keeping the flats would mean that they could be be released at later date to house a family who have a TRUE need to live in central london if necessary.

Surely its no brainer to house one family in a flat when 4 or even 5 families can be housed for the same cost in a house with a garden. I think we need to think of housing as a national problem. Surely long term unemployed/ disabled people have no need to be housed in London.

Counties like Yorkshire provide a fanastic quality of life. Prehaps some of the money saved could be used to help business starts ups in the area. If someone wants to stay closer to London then places like Luton offer cheaper housing and its easy to get to London by train.

£1000 per MONTH would pay for a private 3-bedroom house nearly everywhere in the country.

i live in london in a private rent. i have 4 children. i'm being evicted in feb. so i have to go homeless god nows how long i will be in a hostel for. my area makes things very difficult. like i (have) to have a 4 ed house when i have said i'd be more than happy with a 3 bed. 4 beds are not so common as 3 beds so that makes it harder for me to get anything. me and the children mover to crook a good few years back and we hated it was very isolating. there was nothign to do. i dont drive and we were all very isolated. i did not talk to anyone for weeks on end. it was really horrible. My daughter is 15 so doing GCSE's she also suffers depression and has counselling. if i was to move way out of the area it would rip my daughter apart.

MardyFish that is utter bollocks. Even in a relatively cheap city like Glasgow you'd be struggling to find somewhere with 3 beds for £1000. In London, forget about it.

No-one's going to be evicted. Great. But you're going to have huge swathes of the city where whole social classes are no longer able to live. One great thing about London is that you have utterly loaded people living next door to totally skint people. That is not going to happen if the Tories get their way.

It is already becoming impossible for my partner and I (a journalist and a teacher) to survive in Zone 2. That is not how it should be.

No it's not utter bollocks.

Firstly London is the most expensive place in the country, so obviously when I say nearly everywhere in the country that's not including London. Although it's possible in outer London

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/find.html?locationIdentifier=REGION%5E93938&maxPrice=1000&minBedrooms=3&displayPropertyType=houses&oldDisplayPropertyType=houses

In Glasgow too:

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/find.html?locationIdentifier=REGION%5E61466&insId=4&maxPrice=1000&minBedrooms=3&displayPropertyType=houses&oldDisplayPropertyType=houses

(Note, I don't know anything about Glasgow, but there are 3-bed terraces there around the £600 PCM mark.)

Certainly not possible in Zone 2, I wouldn't dream of living there. Used to live in zone 6 and tube from zone 6 is a lot cheaper than rail from some some of the commuter towns outside London.

You can get from two to six beds in Glasgow for £1000 a month.

None of those places are IN Glasgow/London. They are on the outskirts, or outside. Maybe it's possible to find somewhere, I said you'd be struggling, not that it's impossible.

I don't think there's anywhere in zone 6 that is even counted as London.

Most of the South East, you'd struggle to find somewhere for that price, most of the south, in fact.

Lots of places in zone 6 in London:

Parts of the London Boroughs of Hillingdon, Harrow, Barnet, Enfield, Havering, Bexley, Bromley, Croydon, Kingston, Richmond, and Hounslow.

I stand corrected, but I doubt there's many who live in, say, Croydon or Kingston that would say they live in london.

mardy: i'm in bromley/lewisham and the rent for a 3 bed is 1000-1100 a month on average

msnaughty if that's the case, why can I only find one property one rightmove that is 3 bed and £1000 in Lewisham?

i have no idea yellow. it might depend where you look. i look in local papers shop windows etc.

Why should a person with a low wage pay taxes to support people who live in North Kensington. A lot of people would like to live in North Kensington I should imagine. But they can't afford to. I can't wait to see the end of those subsidies.

I should have added subsidies for the highly priviledged few.

How can anyone be naive enough to believe for one second that councils will plough the profits from selling properties in expensive areas back into providing more social housing?

Q: What percentage of the millions of pounds made from the sale of council houses was re-invested in social housing?
A: Not one penny. The money was ring-fenced by the Government and it was ILLEGAL to for councils to spend it on housing.

Listen, they are lying. They will sell these houses, keep the money and NOT provide any more housing. This Government is comitted to ending all housing subsidies by slowly abolishing housing benefits and fair rent controls in social housing, and by selling off the social housing stock. It is impossible to privately rent anywhere in Bath if you depend on housing benefits, because the benefit caps are so far beneath market rents - not just in 'posh areas' - but the entire city. Average wages here are only £20,000 (and much less than this just outside the city in rural areas) and average house prices top £300,000.