Its always been based on need.

Where we differ is that social housing, council housing, housing association housing, whatever you wish to call it, should not be regarded as charity, as something that people need in times of hardship as a stop-gap measure until they can "better themselves" and move on to mortgages or more expensive private lets.

Nor should we lose sight of the fact that renting is a lifestyle choice and not a shameful one, indeed its the norm in mainland Europe and given that fact the landlord/authority/manager should not have the sanction of re-housing families or individuals just because a bedroom tick box isn't filled - sure you may wish to review the case every five or ten years, you may wish to interview the tenant and ask if they are happy living in a 3 bed house and paying a 3 bed rent now that their children have flown the nest, but there should be no sanction to move the tenant simply because an accountant decrees it so as long as the tenant is paying the going rate.

I suspect that is not in line with what you would desire/practice now.

as we've never met, I will forgive your assumptions as to my opinion.

Social Housing IS charity (look at the deeds of incorporation for any provider, they are charitable) People who do not NEED a 3 bedroom home should not be preventing people that do NEED a 3 bedroom home from having one. Bob Crow does not NEED Social Housing (he needs a bullet between the eyes, admittedly)

You would first have to define "need"

There is an argument that there is strong need to reduce the amount paid out in housing benefit and that could be done by increasing the supply of houses to be rented at truly affordable rates, as opposed to a percentage of the prevailing rents. The casualties of such a system would probably be buy to let and other private sector landlords but hey, investments can go down as well as up. So tough titty.

You have a very narrow definition of "charity", the vast majority of private schools enjoy charitable trust status, only a fool would call them charities.

Your hatred of Bob Crow is well known already but please don't allow your opinion of the man cloud the argument on extending council housing.

I look forward to your support for trades unions campaigning for (up to and including industrial action) wages that allow their members to forego the "charity" of being able to keep a roof over their heads, then, and the chance to take on that liberating burden of a mortgage.

You might wish to start with Cde Crow.

The problem with some who play this sort of line is a total lack of consistency.

It's all well and good saying that having a council house is an act of "charity", but given the cost of housing these days, thanks to the joys of The Market, a great many people need that "charity" or they will not have a roof over their heads. This would not actually be good for anyone – or for the national economy as a whole.

Yet many of those who, frankly, wet their knickers over home ownership, and would claim that council houses etc are "charity" would also scream about 'The Market' and not being beastly to employers if the question of levels of pay that allowed anyone to get a sensible mortgage on an averagely-priced property was to be raised.

Some people are so wedded to an idea – albeit very vague – of 'The Market', together with an abject terror of 'The State', that they appear incapable of joined-up thinking.

And in the meantime, we get the ideological cobblers that actually being able to have a roof over your head is an act of "charity".

On only a slight aside, why do some of the same people that would harp on about how 'socialism/communism has failed' ever think that capitalism hadn't? Why, in spite of all the historic evidence, do some people simply keep on about: 'well, we just need more open markets and more trickle down – because then it will trickle down, even though it never, ever has done before. But it will this time. Honest'?

Are they dishonest? Or are they simply like a secular form of religious believer?

usual left wing dogma of the Sin Bin

So is that an inability to answer the points/questions raised or an unwillingness to try?

My grandparents wouldn't have called it charity, in fact they would have balked at the suggestion that they should accept charity in the form of a property for their young family. In fact I would suggest they paid more in rent for their "charitable" property than that of the house they moved from, pro rata.

There's a couple of errors there.

My local council is not a charitable trust.

You used the word "home" in the sentence above, I believe that what you are talking about is a "house" or "dwelling".


But ultimately we come back to the difference of opinion that I eluded to in my response, by your own admission you've only been working as a housing officer since 1998 and you can therefore be forgiven for having no knowledge of the original purpose for council housing, its a business to you, a matter of logistics and accountancy with little regard to the client but full regard to ticking boxes - quite sad really.

Would you say the average standard of living is higher or lower than it was at the turn of the 20th century - if you believe it is higher then how has that happened? Is that not a tangible example of the trickle down effect?

The market in housing has stalled because an outside factor has disrupted it i.e. the lack of available money. If the usual people who could get mortgages yesteryear could get mortgages now then more new affordable houses would be being built - the fact that nobody seems inclined to lend money right now then why would anyone build houses they cannot sell?

What Crow is doing is denying somebody on a low income the opportunity to rent his house?

Officiousness and without the ability to think or see outside the box.
i would have to ditto your [isad[/i sentiment.

No, that is not trickle-down economics.



They can easily sell them if they reduce the price.

Interesting which threads you're choosing to post on at the moment.

I

No he isn't, it is the failure to build sufficient homes that is denying someone on a low income a house.

That is not the fault of Bob Crow

Since we moved seriously to an economy based on neo-liberal ideology ('trickle down'/Reaganomics/Thatcherism), the cost of living has risen but income has declined for all but a very few.

We now have foodbanks growing massive;y, the Red Cross organising food parcels for UK people, Save the Children spending money in the UK rather than simply collecting it – and this in something like the seventh richest nation on Earth.

Trickle down is not working – and it never has.



Or ...

We could have a massive programme of building council housing that would be affordable for anyone, not just a few, or only on the basis of insane mortgages.

We are short hundreds of thousands of homes precisely because we have not, as a nation, built affordable housing for 20-odd years, not because the housing market has stalled a bit. Indeed, in the last year or so, the housing market has been going bonkers, with prices rising again massively. Housing is being built – and some of it is not even being put up for sale in this country, but advertised in the Far East. There's masses of building going on in my part of London – with prices in the ridiculous brackets for a one-bed flat on City Road, just north of Old Street: hardly a gentrified, quiet area.

The situation is unsustainable. And it's also completely counterproductive in terms of the national economy.

You talked of hypocrisy. I asked you for evidence. I'm still waiting.

so, what do people see the purpose of Social Housing to be, and if you believe that purpose to be more than housing of need in a problem situation, how do you propose funding it?

still laughing that gobbler think I am a housing officer

You've already had the first part of your question answered, the second part comes courtesy of 30 years of government thinking that council housing was not required.

The reversal of that thinking requires government to put back the money that was moved out of the housing budget over those years, it shouldn't be beyond the wit of politicians and accountants to find a way, they certainly found the funding during years of recession and some turmoil in the 1970s and early 80s but then again the attitude towards renting was totally different then.

so, no answers, as usual, just rhetoric.

We've got answers but first we'd like you to answer some from the last couple of days.

Gidiot is borrowing extra hundreds of £millions just to pay benefits, we borrowed £1.5tn to bail out the banks. There is ample scope to fund a massive house-building programme, the same as there was in the 1950s & 60s when this country was in an even worse financial state than it is now.

The only thing missing is political will

You've had the answers.

This is very simple - everyone knows what you try to do with this persona of "Standee" that you invented, we even have people who say that you admit to them face to face that you deliberately try and inflame situations for your own amusement although you won't do it in person, we know this, so it won't work, if you ask a question you'll get an answer, if you try and provoke a more reactive and inflammatory reply then you won't get one.

I would like some answers, other than "everyone else" when it comes to paying for things. You, and your like, want the world on a plate, but you don't want to pay for it.

"My like" ?

What "like" would that be then ?


Your answer has already been given - we need to restore what we previously had and its not beyond a government to do it if and when it has the political will to do it.

This isn't a party political issue as the lack of will to restore council housing stock exists across the House but there was a time, not long ago, when even Margaret Thatchers government were happy to provide investment in social housing via local councils and housing associations, and in a big way too, its before your era of expertise but there was a time when for ten years my job entailed almost entirely of surveying new build and refurb "social housing" schemes probably amounting to several thousand dwellings, the sort of investment that you can only dream of.

The era ?

1974 to 1984, an era of complete political turmoil, an era of two recessions, of three day weeks, of long strike bound periods when we couldn't get any steel onto sites - and still the political will found a way to raise finance for these huge investments.

That is all that is required.

And thats twice that I've answered your question.

still nothing about funding

You probably need to have a read of Thatcher and Callaghan's biographies and see where they raised the funding during times of economic strife, I'm sure the answer will still be relevant.

so you don't know, other than "someone else", true socialism, ideals and no ideas.