Just catching up on this as I'm about 15 mins behind on Sky +. I live in Sheffield in privately rented property. In 1997 the housing system was done in a different way and after finishing university, I got a council flat in a tower block that was a complete dump in a crap area but I did it up lovely! After four years living there I had to move out as they knocked my block down, along with the two next to it. Hundreds of perfectly good one and two bed flats gone in one fell swoop. What a waste.
These days there's no point going on the council waiting list as there's so many on it that there's not a cat in hell's chance of getting a property these days. They should do what they did in Portsmouth and cull the list.
The older two brothers in the big family need to get jobs - any jobs - save up, and privately rent a place. There are lots of reasonably priced private rentals in the city and they'd still get housing benefit help if their wages were low but people tend to want the relative security of a council property, even though they are often on quite rough estates. People these days often lack the ambition and get up and go to aspire to more than getting a one bed council flat in a dodgy area, and that's a shame.