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Original poster

How to get a council house

260 replies

JazzAnnNonMouse · 01/08/2013 21:02

Who deserves it more?

Wtf what kind of country are we living in when we have to choose who deserves shelter and who should be homeless?!

Urgh

OP posts:
dirtyface · 01/08/2013 22:06

what a bleak, depressing programme. i felt so sorry for the people on it that desperately needed a home. the old lady who could barely climb the stairs, but desperately needed a place of her own as she was living with her daughter. and the young couple who bravely congratulated and shook the hands of the family who pipped them to the post of the 3 bed house. god i was about in tears

what sort of country are we living in when the poor, the weak and the disadvantaged are pitting against eachother in a race of who is the most deserving of something as basic as a roof over their head :,(

:(

madamginger · 01/08/2013 22:10

I agree, a million years ago I lived in a 2 bed flat and I was given a set amount by the council to decorate it, a couple of hundred I think for paint and paper

AcrylicPlexiglass · 01/08/2013 22:14

Agree, dirtyface. I see it everyday at work and it is so depressing.

dirtyface · 01/08/2013 22:17

There seems to be a way that the benefits people speak to the applicants, as if they (the applicants) are a bit thick. I wonder if they are trained to do this? I had exactly the same when I was unemployed and when I went to sign on each fortnight I was spoken to as if I was really a bit simple

yep, i thought this too.,

and also had same when i was signing on. :/

GibberTheMonkey · 01/08/2013 22:23

And when dh was signing on

I have never seen him as demoralised as when he came back from the job centre. Soul sapping.

dirtyface · 01/08/2013 22:34

she annoyed me though. that woman who kept turning them down

bloody timewaster, felt sorry for her dcs

bico · 01/08/2013 22:36

Soul sapping is spot on. Surely you'd want people working in a job centre to be supportive and encouraging?

ChimeForChange · 01/08/2013 22:37

My London borough allows you 2 refusals I think. If you refuse 2 reasonable properties you will be taken off the list.

No life tenancies anymore, I believe they are 1,2 and 5 (the maximum) year tenancies.

NO landlords around here will accept housing benefit! I have family and friends in very, very tricky situations. The local council even said we cannot get landlords to accept housing benefit, there's just nothing.

I got a 2 bed garden flat in 2009, £350 decorating vouchers and a life tenancy.

It's all changing very fast!

olliesmom · 01/08/2013 23:10

As the chap with the 2 girls (same sex can share a room) accepted the 3 bed house then he will be affected by the bedroom tax, maybe something else to consider with this bidding business and not mentioned on programme

Kasterborous · 01/08/2013 23:48

I know exactly what you mean about job centres they are soul destroying I hated having to go. They were totally clueless too. They told all 4ft 11 of me to apply for a security guard job.

aturtlenamedmack · 01/08/2013 23:58

My dh works in housing and his solution would be to cap the amount that private landlords can charge for a property.
At the moment housing benefit is set in line with the cost of average property (room, flat,house, whatever meets the needs of the claiment) in each LA. The market rate is obviously just what private landlords decide to charge. This means that public money is going into the pockets of private businesses.
If caps were set, private housing would be more affordable and many council tenants would be able to move to or live in private housing, this would leave public housing provisions there for the most vulnerable.
It would also mean that less public money were paid to private individuals.
The money that this would save the state could go into maintaining the properties that they have and making the thousands of unused properties habitable again.

givemeaboost · 02/08/2013 00:01

I think the chap with the 2 girls is getting an unfair bashing tbh, of course hes bound to be concerned/asking if theres any help- that wasn't just simple decorating-it was being let "as seen" from what the lady said- so costs of removal of doors/wood, repair/demolish fireplace, plus decorating/carpeting. if hes a single parent that's not going to be easy. im shocked they are allowed to let out in that state tbh!
Im glad my HA is better, my flat was a decorative/minor problems state but I was given £500 bnq voucher to help rectify.
He was clearly daunted by the look on his face but easily persuaded by his daughters delight.

MrButtercat · 02/08/2013 07:13

What turtle said and the last poster.

My dp is on a HTR and we own our own home but couldn't afford to redo a house like that,who could?The paint alone and skip hire would need saving for let alone anything else.

Private landlords are hacking me off,pretty much holding the whole country to ransome for their shitty accommodation.

Something has to be done.

Only saw the tail end of it but have to say it was a shock and made me rethink a lot of things.

Having said that the lady being shown the dream flat hacked me off big time.Confused as to why she was getting something gorgeous and the others were being shown hovels.Could somebody explain.Was dream flat private and the others council?

Davros · 02/08/2013 07:57

Did private rents go up in the past because they knew HB would pay (and did?). Serious question.

RedHelenB · 02/08/2013 08:23

Surely landlords that receive HB should have to provide accommodation that is of basic quality ( ie doors that lock!)

dirtyface · 02/08/2013 08:35

i think they did davros

rents have gone silly in the last few years

its a disgrace that normal working people are having to claim HB (and many, many are) because renting has become so unaffordable

the only greedy scroungers in this sorry situation are the landlords, not the benefits claimants.

owlface · 02/08/2013 08:57

The dream flat must have been in one of those developments where a condition of the build is that a certain amount of flats must be for social housing. So it was council/housing association and anyone could bids for it.

EeTraceyluv · 02/08/2013 09:01

W have a lot of 'exclusive' developments where I live and there are always a percentage that have to be social housing. One of my clients has moved into a flat where his neighbours are paying up to a million for their homes.

tiggytape · 02/08/2013 09:01

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MrButtercat · 02/08/2013 10:02

Me too.

So why don't they cap how much they pay landlords?

I also wonder why you can't legally have to meet criteria re rental accommodation before you are allowed take rent eg room size,condition of carpet/fittings,damp,windows,heating system(no storage heaters)etc

Shops can't sell utter crap so why can landlords take money for crap not really fit for purpose?

tiggytape · 02/08/2013 11:20

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

78bunion · 02/08/2013 11:34

As people say above most landlords will not take housing benefit claimants there is not much point in capping rents. We tried that with the Rent Acts and it meant private rented property ceased to be available and those seeking housing were the loser. Most landlords make only a tiny bit more than they would if they put their 10% deposit in a bank at 1% interest and that is whilst only paying interest only mortgages.

soverylucky · 02/08/2013 11:55

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MurderOfGoths · 02/08/2013 12:09

"but you can stay at the top and keep turning them down mow? Have I got that right?"

We were told that if we turned down any we'd be moved down the list. And that was only about 2 years ago. We were lucky the first place we were offered was nice.

"Does no one inspect the private sector housing that the public is funding via housing benefit? If not they should be."

Nope. We had to move out of a private rental (funded by HB) because there was a hole in the wall, and the landlord got violent when we asked for it to be fixed. Council knew. HB knew. We were on our own. And the one before that lied about there being heating. And the one before that the roof leaked.

"They are still lying to me."

Oh they are good at that. In the situation above we asked for advice as we obviously weren't safe, we spoke to one of their experts and they told us to stay with family but still pay rent via HB. A year later they took us to court for those few months of HB, accused us of stealing it. Then last month they cut off all our benefits because they apparently got a letter from us saying we'd moved back to that property!

"One of the problem with hb and private rental is there are so very few houses that the amount you get for hb would cover and then some of them would refuse people claiming hb so you are left with people living in hovels as it's all they can afford"

Yep, or you only get the choice of extremely dodgy landlords, who will charge less because they know their property isn't fit for purpose and they have no intention of repairing it. And they know you have no other options.

"Normally councils give grants to help decorate I thought but maybe that something else thats been 'cut'"

They've cut that here. We got a paint tray and couple of rollers instead. Hmm Really helpful when they'd taken out all the carpets/curtain rails/light bulbs! Though they helpfully left us the cockroach infested mattress and carpet in the loft.

PearlyWhites · 02/08/2013 12:19

They are not his daughters they were his granddaughters so hopefully if fostered they won't be affected by bedroom tax.

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