Who can tell me about the history of council housing/social housing/housing associations?

[Earlybird]

When did it begin, who was responsible (politicians, philanthropists, etc), how has it evolved, etc. Has how a family qualifies evolved over the decades, and if so, how has that changed?

Also would like to know about how/why 'right to buy' was implemented and whether or not that has been a good or bad thing.

Has the sort of housing available changed over the years as new estates have been built, and if so, how?

Do other countries provide a similar level of council housing/housing association/social housing 'help' ?

In the long and short term, what could realistically improve the current situation (not cloud-cuckoo-land fantasy please!)?

Just curious as to how it was originally intended to function vs how it functions now.

Am not a UK citizen btw, which may explain my 'ignorance' on the subject.

That's a lot of information for someone else to look up for you. Can't you do the research yourself?

Are you dong some sort of course? in which case i would suggest this is cheating.
you should do your own research. Im sure once you have your groundwork covered we will happily discuss our theories for you to pick over

Its a big enough topic to be a dissertation. Not something for general chit chat is it!

After ww1, the Government realised that soldiers were coming home to unsuitable housing. They decided to look at building "homes for heros".

This was the beginning of the state coming into private lives. It did not take off till after ww2. The beveridge report gave areas in society that could be improved with state help such as housing and the Nhs. Social housing began to be built en masse in the late 40's early 50's.

Margaret Thatcher decided to allow people to buy their homes. She was trying to encourage people to have something to aspire to. This was in the 1980's.

Right to buy is suspended in many places now. Lots of local councils are asking people who live in larger houses alone to move into smaller houses. More funding is needed to build social housing. Just the same as everything else.

This is just a simplistic answer somone else may be able to go into more detail

Calm down dears! (as Michael Winner would say )

No, am not doing some sort of course, just hoping to have a civilised discussion.

The thread that ran and ran this week about 'am i unreasonable to think the welfare state is too generous if people in council flats have way more stuff than those on middle income can afford' was what got me thinking.

So thought i would ask in an attempt to learn more....

Another thing was the problem of unsuitable housing was worse in Scotland than in England. Families often lived in one room. It got to the point where the state intervened and put a limit on how mwny people there could be in a house/flat and they used to send people around to check!

Thanks for info girly.

So the government decided that it needed to intervene to insure that there were minimum standards of accommodation? And provide that accommodation if necessary?

When my grandparents applied for their council house in 1937 you only qualified if you could show that you could afford the rent, with a reference from your employer.

Overcrowding was responsible for spreading disease. The government wanted to try and keep it under control.

Im not sure about the exact standards that were required. Sorry, just telling you as much as I know from the history course I did in 1st year!

Also, after the second world war, the previous rows of terrace houses of the 2 up, 2 down and an outside loo were all knocked down.
Council estates were built in a lot of overspill towns outside London.That's how I ended up being born in London but growing up in Norfolk. The houses in London were replaced by tower blocks and a whole new can of worms was opened.

As for the right to buy, this was one of Thatcher's bright ideas. Sell off all the council houses but don't build anymore. The local councils were not allowed to use the money raised to build new council homes. A lot of local councils decided to get rid of their housing stock and turned them over to housing associations.

Sorry that did not make sense.

try here

Or here

Hope it helps