Council housing query

[user13842]

When there is a council housing shortage, why do Council’s not manage those living in the homes they have better? For example, I know of someone who lives on their own in a 3-bed council house in my area as their children have now left home. I also know of a family of 4 (2 parents, 2 children) who are living in a small 2 bed council flat. I appreciate this won’t cater for everyone but why do Council’s not routinely check up on who they are housing in what and encourage swaps where appropriate so that everyone is housed according to their needs? Appreciate it isn’t as straightforward as all that but surely it would be relatively easy to create a system to flag suitable swaps when they came up based on regular checks on circumstances.

I also know of a couple who were in council housing for a couple of years despite suddenly earning a lot of money and was very surprised the Council didn’t do regular checks on this to identify those who could afford private renting and move them on for those in need.

Totally agree OP. It should be needs based. A single person shouldn’t be occupying a 3 bed house when a couple with 2 kids are stuck in a 1 bed flat. People think they own their housing association house and should get to live their indefinitely but they don’t own it and the rent is subsided by the tax payer.

firstly we need to make private rent affordable- where I am for a 2 bedroom on intermediate rent it’s around £1400, full market value is upwards of 1700. On top of child care it isn’t financially viable. If rents were capped at a realistic pricing then it would encourage people to move.

i was in a studio when I moved in 4 years ago my rent was 700 it’s now 1000 and due to go up again in April. With the ever increasing massive jumps in price even downsizing to private potentially means that within a year or two you are unable to afford the rent and rent is still capped at local
housing rate which doesn’t cover the vast majority of private rents.

Why are children the responsibility of strangers?
DH and i are in a one bedroom flat. Hes 75 COPD advanced ischemic heart disease and arthritis. He uses a mobility scooter. We are on the top floor of a two storey block of flats. He struggles down the stairs. A bungalow would be ideal. But im not sitting here full of bitterness that other people have bungalows and we dont. Im not thinking that someone should be kicked out so we can have it. There needs to be more accessible housing built for disabled people. But all many have gone on about on here is kids kids kids. Now the "village" are expected to give up their homes for other peoples children as well as provide free childcare I dont expect ANYONE to give up their home for me despite the fact i live in a cramped flat
That is not anyones elses fault or problem. It is what it is.
REMINDER Having children is a choice Disability isnt Yet accesible housing which there is also a shortage of has barely if at all been mentioned on here. All a lot care about is if you have living proof that you have had sex without contraception!

I don't think I would describe the Horizon scandal as corruption. Corruption tends to be a deliberate plan to defraud, often involving some kind of bribery. Horizon was about postmasters taking the blame for the failings of an IT system, and a cover-up on a massive scale. It's maladministration and negligence, but I don't think it's corruption in the proper sense of the word.

It sounds like a similar situation that you are talking about - if the system isn't logging payments correctly and tenants are being told they haven't paid when they have, and there is denial about the system failures, that's negligence and maladministration. It's not corruption, but it is absolutely appalling, and the impact of the stress on individuals must be immense. It's the same experience of banging your head against a brick wall because you're being told by a massive institution that you must be wrong because they certainly aren't.

Fair point.

This is basically what the bedroom tax was about. I remember all the ridiculous stories about how ‘I put the wallpaper up and I’m attached to this house’ and so on. The only people who I think an exception could and should have been made for were the ones whose children had died and obviously they didn’t want change. As a general principle, though, yes, tenants should be moved where possible including when there’s financial change. They are not the tenants’ property; they are the council’s property. If we had a surplus of properties then fine but we don’t. We have a chronic shortage. As a council resource a property should be used appropriately so no, an old couple should not be in a 3 bedroom house; a family should be.

Then ppl should have STFU during Covid moaning and whining that ppl didnt have spare rooms they could self isolate in

@JenniferBooth If people do not have dc there's not enough tax to pay for benefits. There's a great need for people to have dc or who is working and paying tax in the future? You?

That sounds SENSIBLE- so obviously it’s not going to be replicated anywhere else!

One minute y"all saying those living in SH are getting it free. The next they are paying loads of tax Which is it?

@JenniferBooth ??? Obviously social housing is not free. To anyone. Have you considered who pays for such housing to be built or purchased? Obviously that has a cost and obviously people pay rents. Most social housing rents are below the private sector rents. It’s long been the case that society needs dc. We cannot sustain our high dependency on the NHS or benefits without new people replacing retirees or those not working. Therefore actually helping families is important or you won’t get what you need because the choice to have dc becomes too expensive. We all need people to have DC!

I seem to remember Governments moaning and telling ppl not to have kids that they cant afford
Now the reckoning has to be paid its the public who are in the wrong AGAIN

@JenniferBooth I do know a third dc doesn't get child benefit but that's not the same as having 6 dc and no job! We have many people who should be able to have families but are seeing child care as an insurmountable cost. It's too expensive. They struggle to afford housing. They cannot get social housing at all or upgrade to a bigger house. So the birth rate is falling. It will lead to tax levels going down. Everyone needs to wake up to this. The other alternative is immigration. That's not very popular either.

The same argument is to be had with my original point, why should a single adult get to live in a subsided council property that has 3 bedrooms just because they always have?

It’s not value for money for the tax payer because the family will have to rent private and get the rent made up with UC so the private LL pockets get lined and the tax payer gets fleeced. The alternative would be to move the family in the bigger house and the single person in the smaller property. You say it’s not fair but then same would apply when the family’s children grow up, the parents would move in to a smaller property.

I don’t consider having two children a lifestyle choice either. It’s a biological urge that most women feel. You’d have a point of someone was having a 5th/6th and so on, but not 2. Also contraceptive could have failed etc and it may not have been a choice in some circumstances. We then end up down the slippery slope where on the wealthy can have kids….

@Pinkandcake We are approaching that if you live in London and actually want to buy a house! Look at the cost! We seem to demonise families whilst wanting dc to pay for everything when they are older. I do think we need to move over to social housing for those who need it but not the same property for life. This requires a variety of properties though and we simply don't have them. We need a much better look at who needs what and at which stage of life.

Why should a single private renter life in a 3 bedroom private rental?

And once again - council/HA aren't 'subsidised'

Of course the are, the very fact they’re cheaper to rent is why and how they are subsidised. They are cheaper to rent in compression to similar like for like private houses.

You can have two houses next door to each others, one private, one council and the rents won’t be the same, because one is significantly cheaper. I’m not saying everyone gets help to pay their rent because some people won’t get a penny toward it, it’s the reduced initial rent that’s the subsidy.

The councils have thousands of people waiting for a property because they can’t afford private rents, otherwise if money was no object they wouldn’t need the council hosue

The single renter in a
private house is irrelevant because it has nothing to do with the council and the state can’t dictate to a private LL who they rent their house out to.
its nothing to do with them. They can dictate with their own stock though…

It absolutely is different. The housing is publicly owned and blocked by people who could afford to buy their own house, not on IMHO.

Posted by @Pinkandcake
The councils have thousands of people waiting for a property because they can’t afford private rents, otherwise if money was no object they wouldn’t need the council hosue

Posted by @Viviennemary

It absolutely is different. The housing is publicly owned and blocked by people who could afford to buy their own house, not on IMHO

So when exactly do these riches untold happen. Is it when the private renters move into social housing Do they become magically able to afford to buy by dint of moving into SH. Is it the next day. Is it three years later? Five?

When exactly do they stop becoming your "poor dears" and become SH hoggers. When is the exact time of day month year that this happens.

This mentions class bias
https://www.zinio.com/gb/article/woman-home/february-2025-i665201/judgemental-moi-a24

I think you’re getting confused with who you’re replying to here.

I’m specifically talking about a single adult living alone in a 3 bed house, when there are families crammed in to one bedroom flats, because they can’t afford to private rent a bigger property.

Though I do also agree that if someone earns over a certain figure or has significant savings then they should be made to give up their house and either buy or rent privately as they no longer need the councils help,

It's not subsidised just because it's cheaper. If a private landlord had bought a house back in 1996, when they were much cheaper, she could afford to charge a much lower rent. It wouldn't be subsidised, because no-one is putting in money to reduce the costs. It's just that the landlord can afford not to charge market rent and chooses not to.

Similarly, most council/HA housing has been owned for a really long time. The costs of building the properties have been covered by the rent payments. So the council/housing association can afford to charge cheaper rents, and that is the point of them.

Stock-transfer HAs (where an LA sold their whole stock to an HA) will have a loan to cover the cost of the properties - essentially a huge mortgage. So rents go to cover that, along with repairs etc.

There is some capital funding for building new social housing - this is a subsidy, but it's a miniscule proportion of the whole stock - not enough to affect rents overall.

So it's not subsidised rent.

It is a public asset, and it's not being utilised well. It's wrong that there are families in temporary B&Bs when there are homes being under-utilised. It's wrong for them and the extortionate costs of temporary accommodation are being paid by local authorities.

But I don't think it should be solved at the cost of the benefits of security of tenure for social housing tenants. Because those benefits aren't just for the individuals. We all benefit from stable communities. Being able to live near your support networks reduces loneliness, mental health issues etc. it makes for nicer neighbourhoods. And it says people are valuable.

I think it should be looked at in the same way as bed-blocking in hospitals. What is stopping people downsizing? What would enable them to move?

@CoffeeCup14

Some social housing is still council
owned, whilst the HA are more like charities and not for profit, but they have access to government funding for various means regarding their housing stock. Two couples can buy the same house next door to each other, but one is significantly cheaper, through the HA - via government subsidies, to enable people to get on the property ladder, that otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford that house. Same with right to buy loved in properties in general.

It’s not ideal but just because someone grew up in a house, it shouldn’t
mean that’s theirs for life regardless. It would be smiling swapping to a smaller property, so they’d still have security of a home, just not one that doesn’t meet their needs.

You’re right, it’s like the equivalent to bed blocking. The example could be used that someone is found a home with a care plan but doesn’t want that one? Well that’s unfortunate but they’re aren’t getting kicked out on to the street, it’s just a preference that doesn’t suit them. That’s not fair for the other people waiting and needing that bed

There are also a lot of housing associations which are stock-transfer - they were created by councils to sell their stock to. So they're more like local authority housing in a lot of ways than traditional HAs. I don't know what the split of stock is between the three types.

I'd get rid of right to buy and rights of succession. And then I'd create a review every ten years, so if your family is too small for the property (underoccupying by more than one bedroom), you're given something like a year to move and priority bidding. So you know it's coming and can plan accordingly, and you have time to find somewhere suitable. And possibly you could trigger the bidding priority earlier, so if a smaller house came up in your area, you could move into it.

Completely agree with everything you’ve said here.