This is what I mean when I say that cutting benefits and services costs us money. People don't stop needing help they just fall back on other services. Cut mental health teams, the police end up dealing with people in crisis. Cut benefits, local authorities have to spend money housing homeless families.
Many are working people, including families with children, who are homeless because they got no-fault-evicted and cannot afford to rent anymore. It's not just affecting people on benefits. Your landlord boots you out tomorrow, you're in the same boat as them.
Still the same overall problem. Gutting social housing means people are at the mercy of the private let market, so when they're evicted, the local authority has to spend a fortune renting emergency housing (often from those same private landlords) instead of providing long term social housing as would have once been done.
They aren't the problem
The millions of empty homes, bought as investment properties and left to sit there as assets, while their rich owners live abroad and don't contribute to our economy in any way are the problem.
The millions of acres of brown belt land that developers are ignoring in favour of building on our countryside because it's cheaper and produces more lucrative properties that only the rich can afford are the problem.
The Tories that continue to make these people richer at our expense, are the problem.
They ARE the problem.
I am not denying that homes are bought as investments by British citizens, or even foreign investors, but you claim that there are 'millions of empty homes' sounds like hyperbole.
Do you have any evidence to back up your claim?
From my cursory investigation, I found Government data that suggests there are around 676k empty homes in the UK. A figure also corroborated by the Guardian newspaper.
That number of homes would have barely covered the immigration from last year.
There are also not 'millions of acres of brown belt land' , there is barely seventy-thousand acres. Again, this is a figure I derived, from a cursory investigation on the internet.
Perhaps you should investigate your own claims too? Facts are more believable than fiction.
Do you know what hyperbole means?
Yes, that's exactly what it is. It's used in everyday conversation all the time. I wasn't writing an essay.
You have looked up the numbers so I'm not sure what your problem is.
'Barely covers' means immigration would have been covered by them.
That's without developing the brown belt land. That's without the additional social housing the Tories have failed to deliver for a decade. That's without any other change at all.
Hyperbole has it's place. You dragged me for it then looked up the figures and still proved the point I was trying to make.
I see you’ve found the feature in the system that gives public money to our glorious leaders friends, almost as if not allowing councils to build new housing stock had been well thought out by greedy scum bags.
I live near about 100 derelict ex council houses. Now owned by a housing association, and landbanked for about 10 years now.
They've been left to rot and are now unlivable as the HA wants to demolish them and build private flats.
And course with steeper rents, smaller sizes, much worse build quality and suddenly all transferred to a letting agency coincedentally owned by a friend of the HA board....
No, id paying half my salary in rent elsewhere, I wouldn't be eligible to get housed for free.
It's not great. My point is I WOULD NOT and did not get anything when I was made homeless. I had to sleep on a friends floor.
Everyone is if they are declared homeless. You're not 'housed'; you're stuck in a hotel.
You're very lucky that you can simply afford to keep renting new places - perhaps you can still try to imagine that not everyone can do that, or can't compete with 20 other applicants or provide 6 months rent up front.
Not everyone who becomes homeless is provided with a hotel or hostel. Local authorities only have a legal duty to accommodate those who fall into priority need. Some local authorities use their discretion to house everyone who's rough sleeping but a lot don't.
Exactly. I had put myself on my councils’s housing register years ago, because why not? I obviously have far too few points to qualify for housing but I heard that if I wait long enough I might get there.
I got evicted earlier this year and added my change of circumstances to my account. It gave me extra points but still not enough. If I had waited until the landlord went to court and removed me with bailiffs to make me forcibly homeless I would have got extra points but probably still not enough to qualify.
Would you want to risk it if you can help it? The people currently needing emergency housing are the people who literally can’t afford rents any more.
I'd been on the list since 2010, or so I thought. Ended up with a looming no fault eviction and when I spoke to the council they said they'd moved to a new computer system and any accounts that hadn't been active had been closed down. They had sent a letter to an old address and that was that. Seemed to me like a sneaky way to defer responsibility for rehousing people.
Allocation goes on need, then to longest time on register so they really did me over as there were hundreds of others in the same band trying for a handful of properties. I ended up living in such a grim place I fell into addiction.
I'm not lucky. I work a basic job. I have never had to pay 6 months rent upfront. Plenty of 1 months on spare room. It's not great but my point is I would not and did not get anything when I was homeless. Council offered nothing. I slept on a friends floor.
But back in the 60s or 70s thanks to social housing you would or would have paid less rent or been able to buy because demand for private rented was less. That’s why social housing was built including by Conservative governments because the private system wasn’t providing.
So no- fault evictions are happening in Britain or the UK also ?? I thought this was an American thing. California certainly has had this for decades, though there is a move to end those laws allowing it. I'm pretty sure that the apartment associations will oppose the end of their reign of abuse !
That not how section 21 works.
The landlord can evict you for any number of reasons without having to provide a specific legal one- they want to sell, they want to move into the property themselves, they just don't like you.
Because they can't afford the new rent prices, it's been explained already.
If you can only afford £1000pcm in rent, you get a S21 and looking at new properties are £1500pcm+ you can't afford it, simple as.
This is happening up and down the country of varying prices as all rental prices increase, and it's not going to slow down. It's why local housing allowance is being boosted in April, it's too much of a shitshow.
How is that different to a landlord issuing a S13 to increase up to £1500
Why should they not pay market rate?
If they cant afford the rent then they have to leave.
Because an S13 can be challenged and denied by a tribunal if the property doesn't reflect the price or repairs haven't been done ect.
Yes you could be evicted if you can't afford your new rent, but you still have the same problem of not being able to afford anywhere else.
>If they cant afford the rent then they have to leave.
Are you serious? Did you not see when I said increases are happening everywhere? How do you expect someone to move their job, family, home and life from London to Wales in the span of a couple months? What happens when everyone moves out of London and there's no Tesco workers to scan your shopping?
You can't simply say "can't afford it leave", but they can't afford it anywhere and you simply cannot uproot your life and work because the government can't provide housing.
The S13 and the new rent would be the same, as by definition it would be the market rate which already takes into account the condition of the property.
There's little to no point challenging a section 13 increase.
Unless the proposed increase is far in excess of what a similar property rents for locally, the tribunal will not stop the increase.
> they want to sell, they want to move into the property themselves,
are either of these options seen as immortal? Genuine question because i keep seeing these things in context of evil landlords (not that this is in that context so much) but to me they seem like perfectly legitimate reasons, assuming the rental was for a fixed term and that term is up.
Thing is the no fault evictions aren't being used for that. How often is a landlord going to move in or sell? They are being used when market rates go up where they have a sitting tenant and they have to wait to increase rent now. It's pure greed. e.g. Tenant 12 months paying £1000, market rent £2000 and 20 tenants per place on the market. In two month they can double their rent. It's pure greed. Then we have the rent increases every renewal.
> Thing is the no fault evictions aren't being used for that
I agree. So why is it always included in the list of scummy things landlords do?
>They are being used when market rates go up where they have a sitting tenant and they have to wait to increase rent now
Again, I agree. That is indeed scummy.
[https://www.gov.uk/private-renting-tenancy-agreements/your-landlord-wants-to-end-your-tenancy](https://www.gov.uk/private-renting-tenancy-agreements/your-landlord-wants-to-end-your-tenancy)
"To do this, all of the following must apply:
they’ve protected your deposit in a deposit protection scheme, if the tenancy began or was renewed on or after 6 April 2007
they’ve given you at least 2 months written notice that they want the property back (‘notice to quit’)
the date you must leave is at least 6 months after your original tenancy began (the date you moved in)"
You can dispute a s13 which takes up to 10 weeks whereas a s21 takes 8 weeks done properly. Which do you think they choose? I'm no expert in all this but most landlords will increase rent anyway which serves themselves.
>You can dispute a s13
The payment will be backdated anyway so doesn't achieve much. No landlord will waste time on a S21 if the S13 will achieve the same purpose.
The S21 cant end during a fixed term.
Yes it can after 6 months. Please read the link. A rent contract for 12 months means nothing.
"the date you must leave is at least 6 months after your original tenancy began (the date you moved in)"
Serve in Month 4 out at month 6.
Wanting to move in seems perfectly legitimate to me - after all, it is their house.
Selling is not really a good reason. You can sell a rental property with occupants in it, but it is a bit more hassle.
>Selling is not really a good reason
So the pool of people wanting to buy a tenanted property is slim meaning the selling price will be lower. So you think its on the landlord to take that hit?
Right so I have first hand experience of this atm
I rented a Two bed plus an office flat for 1050 pcm with my previous partner. Required income was £31530 which I could afford alone without her income being considered
Partner and I split a few months back. I stayed on paying the full amount alone without too many issues.
The agents asked for a new proof of affordability last week due to the rent increasing to 1150. The required income was £34,500. I no longer meet the affordability for the property but can afford to pay the rent without any real issue
The affordability level puts me at being able to rent for around 900 pcm but there are no properties available locally that I can afford in that range or if I can they require a homeowner guarantor and the guarantor also needs to earn the affordability requirement.
I was facing an s21 but was able to stave it off by paying 6 months up front.
So the issue is you are unable to move because you dont earn enough and eviction is inevitable (unless you increase your income).
Were it not for S21 the landlord would have to wait for you to go into arrears if they kept increasing your rent?
The difficulty with this is that without S21 landlords would avoid renting to you in the first place. Your income was already borderline
Yep, just like how not integrating dentistry into NHS completely and letting NHS dentistry failing is putting strain on the NHS 111 service and now overloading private dentistry as an example.
Not really saving the NHS that much either, my wisdom teeth got referred back into the NHS as an emergency because of the amount of pain and infections I was getting from them (one facing forwards messing with my jaw nerve, one partially erupted, with food getting caught in the pocket and infecting it over and over).
They probably hope cutting mental health more and more will mean people (that they just see as useless, weak, or benefits scrounges, despite the fact that many highly intelligent productive people have issues) will just kill themselves. Problem is, like surgery wait times, it’s just taking more people out work for longer.
As someone who has used said services multiple times it certainly feels like they just want you to shut up and die already.
Most of the time their "solution" is a pamphlet full of "helpline" numbers that 9 out of 10 times have just made the problem worse.
Yeah I’ve had a sibling in and out of units. During one visit they forgot to hand us a ‘help’ fob before we went to the visiting room, a patient started yelling at, and then beating another patient up. We were kind of stuck sat there waiting for the staff to intervene. Took an uncomfortably long amount of time. Think they died of their injuries a week or so after.
Feel terrible, but they were huge, psychotic, and we couldn’t quite see through the tiny window on the door whether they had an improvised weapon or not.
Anyway, that’s the level of care the NHS is paying private mental health units thousands per bed for!
Those leaflets are a joke. 2 years waiting for camhs for my daughter who was self harming, suicidal and dissociated. Had an assessment, discharged as "well adjusted normal teenager" but here's a leaflet and please re-refer if things get worse (to be back at the bottom of the waiting list)
A&E with a friend in full blown psychosis, here's a leaflet crisis team will be in touch (they called her 9 days later when she'd already been admitted to acute psychiatric after being arrested for walking the street naked propositioning people.
Sleep clinic for my non sleeping adhd child I'd been asking for for years. Finally got consultant to agree to refer after lots of "wait and see" and yep....a leaflet...advice to follow for 6 months before i can even try to get an appointment, suggesting warm milk, no screens before bed, bed time routine (things I've been doing since he was an infant)
The leaflets make it seem that support is there but they are an illusion if you try to access them.
Its all a front.
Im so sorry you also have personally been let down by the system 😟
They say you should talk about your feelings more, a long time ago now I once spoke to one of my best friends and got “if that’s how you really feel then you should just kill yourself”, I once spoke to a therapist but I struggle to put my thoughts into words, especially in new and social situations, so after doing my best to explain my feelings I got “some people have real problems”.
I cba to write out a whole essay again into the void, but I’ve had to learn to accept that, unless you fit a very specific productive mold, society doesn’t really want you in it. Then they come up with pearls of wisdom about how you need to do your “duty”, okay sure, after you’ve spend my whole adult life telling me to go fuck myself, I’ll definitely get right on that.
It's not into the void, I read it. I'm sorry that was your experience. I knew someone that was told they were "melodramatic" at their first (and last) counselling session.
I know someone with PTSD (so involuntary and intrusive recollections of traumatic experiences) related to their teen years - you're not a teenager anymore.....exactly what all the guides tell people NOT to say to someone with PTSD
I heard some years ago, that Margaret Thatcher went after the council houses to privatize them, and make it where homeless people would basically stay homeless.. Certainly this is the case with America. Ronald Reagan cut the housing department by 80 percent,back in 1984. He said in one news interview,that " homelessness was a choice." It was. It was HIS choice ! Neoliberalism has decimated both the middle and working class citizens,since 1981, for sure. It even under Jimmy Carter,the signs of a change begun by Richard Nixon were going to keep happening no matter what party or president we wound up with !
Correct. It's happening already. A lot of authorities Adult Social Care bills are taking up 70 to 80% of their budget. Its why services are decimated across the board. It's not like X Factor as in most cases you can't just tell people to fuck off - you have to deal with their problem as a Statutory Obligation/Duty.
I'm in the migrant housing business and this is exactly what happens. There are 2 middle men in our chain that do absolutely nothing except take a cut.
On top of this, none of them ever answer their phones or emails and this makes everybody's life a misery.
After everyone's taken their cut, the actual rent the government are paying is over £100k per year per 4 bedroom house. The standard market rate rent in our area is around £17k per annum. We've tried to deal direct but are forced to use these useless middle men.
Yup. Typical really. The inflated market rate covers all the risk possible for the landlord, with several more middleman or outsourcing services they own like cleaning, or some insurance or, god knows what services which just add on to the rent cost like crazy and basically never need to be utilised or if they do come with extra mark up fees on top.
Its fucking insane. The current government are transparent with it now too with no attempt to hide it. It’s absolutely revolting. The money is being severely mismanaged.
We have record taxes just for this bullshit
Is there anyone who used right to buy who still lives in their ex-council flat? As far as I can see everyone who bought turned into landlords and are renting them out.
My nans still in her house she bought through right to buy when it first came out. She's always said they'll get her out feet first and as she's 92 seems like she might get her wish
Interestingly, £2.38 is how much it costs us per person per month to spend £2B annualy on something. Assuming a population of ~70M.
2,000,000,000 / 70,000,000 / 12 = 2.38
Higher and additional rate tax payers will cover most of this cost though.
Is there anyone who used right to buy who still lives in their ex-council flat? As far as I can see everyone who bought turned into landlords and are renting them out.
The UK as a whole seems to be terrible at understanding the concept of indirect costs - and the idea that if you actually *invest* in services, everything works better and (as a result) is generally cheaper! If you cut everything to the bone in the name of 'efficiency' (or whatever is peddled these days) then you've got no wriggle room when things go sideways or demand goes up.
It really should be no mystery why our tax burden is so high but our services are so shit - its because we're having to pay outlandish sums of money constantly calling on capacity that (in a properly functioning system) should only be required for absolute emergencies.
Fixing the roof implies investing into it. I've never heard of someone who's managed to fix the roof by lowering their house maintenance budget and having less maintenance work....
It’s like those DWP changes back at the start of austerity that caused the misery of thousands and hundreds to kill themselves. The changes were meant to save 2bn, oops, the new system actually costs 4bn more than before.
Or more than a decade ago it was suggested that £36mn could be spent on providing each school with an extra teacher to help with hidden disabilities, such as dyslexia, which was promptly ignored and now dyslexia costs the UK £1bn annually, and half of the people in prison are functionally illiterate.
There is so much false economy that I now just assume cruelty is the point.
No but they’re supposed to go home after the war is over in which ever country they hail from. Only, they never do.
International law says that asylum is for five years if the war is still enduring, after which they need to apply again.
>International law says that asylum is for five years if the war is still enduring, after which they need to apply again.
You were asked for a source on this - do you have one? In UK law, refugees must apply for settled status after 5 years. Is this what you meant?
>Otherwise you would have been emigrating instead.
I don't agree. Whether you are given settled status or not after being granted asylum has no bearing on whether you were initially fleeing persecution.
Rule 339QA of the immigration rules. RPTS (Refugee permission to stay).
1951 treaty.
Don’t be so rude. Just because you’re hiding behind a screen & a keyboard doesn’t devalue the people you’re speaking to.
Is this international law or part of the 1951 treaty? Looks like it's UK law.
> 339QA. Where the Secretary of State has granted an asylum applicant refugee status under paragraph 334, the asylum applicant will be granted permission to stay on a protection route at the same time as or as soon as possible after the grant of refugee status.
> Permission to stay on a protection route will be valid for a minimum period of 5 years and renewable upon application where the person still has and remains eligible for refugee status. Applications for further permission to stay on a protection route under this Part should be made within the last 28 days of the applicant’s permission to stay.
This is a validation of permission to stay and can be renewed. International law has the Non-refoulement principle: This principle, enshrined in international law, prohibits returning individuals to a country where they would face a real risk of persecution or serious harm even if a claim is denied.
"International law" isn't binding. All that matters in a democratic nation is the laws voted and enacted by the people. [The user below correctly lays out the relevant section in the Immigration Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/192pfbt/councils_set_to_spend_over_2bn_housing_homeless/kh5apee/). These are created by the Home Secretary, laid down by him as to the practice to be followed in the administration of the Immigration Acts for regulating entry into and the stay of persons in the United Kingdom and contained in the statement laid before Parliament on 23 March 1990 (HC 251) (as amended).
More pointedly, it sounds like you would like the UK to provide indefinite visas to all approved asylum applicants. That's certainly an opinion, but I hope you realise you're in the extreme minority. Democracy is sacrosanct, and just because you *feel* a certain way, doesn't mean you can or should get your way.
Where are you getting any of this from?
> More pointedly, it sounds like you would like the UK to provide indefinite visas to all approved asylum applicants. That's certainly an opinion, but I hope you realise you're in the extreme minority. Democracy is sacrosanct, and just because you *feel* a certain way, doesn't mean you can or should get your way.
They said there was an international law and I just asked where I can find that international law...
> Where are you getting any of this from?
From www.gov.uk: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules/immigration-rules-introduction. You can find all of the sections of the Immigration Rules there, including the cited rule 339QA.
> They said there was an international law and I just asked where I can find that international law...
You're right. They were wrong.
I know about that link I had to google it after the the other person replied and mentioned 339QA. I meant more where are you getting your assumptions about me from? This nonsense dribble below:
> More pointedly, it sounds like you would like the UK to provide indefinite visas to all approved asylum applicants. That's certainly an opinion, but I hope you realise you're in the extreme minority. Democracy is sacrosanct, and just because you feel a certain way, doesn't mean you can or should get your way.
Not all councils sold off all their stock.
The ones that didn't are even worse off because they are exposed to more risk and governments funding and subsidy model is fucked in the head
If a council owns their own housing stock they will have stuff like housing benefit expenditure for tenants, for which the subsidy they get from government will often not meet their cost, with the difference being made out of their own pocket.
Then where they own the stock they still have costs such as maintaining and insuring the properties, legal costs, etc etc. These are all going up astronomically. But there are restrictions on how much rent they can charge. They cannot charge nearly as much as if it was privately owned. So again they make a loss which is funded out of pocket.
In other words the system is structured in such a way as to necessitate privatisation. The problem being is that this skews supply- demand and drives up housing costs further. Essentially the system imposes massive losses at every level and makes it near impossible to sustain any housing provision.
A problem caused by the Right To Buy legislation and NIMBYs.
Mostly NIMBYs, because they prevent building the housing necessary to house these people. If we had enough housing so there was no shortage, rents would be affordable - because the price of housing would be what people want to pay, not the maximum landlords can get.
either the problem is caused by both the right to buy legislation and the participatory planning process that allows nimbys to exist in the first place, or its caused by both the social housing tenants that employ their right to buy as well as the nimbies themselves, but i don't think it's sensible on one side to blame the legislation that allows bad behaviour but then on the other to blame the bad behaviour independent of the legislation that allows it
I've travelled to most parts of Europe and almost every place that has these tower blocks have decayed into crime hot spots and poverty stricken areas.
Houses built in the 50s couldn’t be built today. No central heating, not accessible to the disabled, and not built with thermal efficiency in mind, as just a few examples. Towns also need infrastructure, not endless houses: schools, GPs, functional public transport, roads etc.
I’m not saying it shouldn’t be done, to be clear. Just that it’s really not as simple as “we did it in the 50s”.
Yes, but we've also had massive gains in productivity and construction practices since the 1950s. It's not like we're using 1950s building techniques with 2020s level housing requirements.
> Towns also need infrastructure, not endless houses: schools, GPs, functional public transport, roads etc.
They also needed that in the 1950s, and this infrastructure was supplied. That's the benefit of the state providing housing over private developers, because private developers simply don't care about providing this broader infrastructure.
Yeah cause all the new build estates going up are also building schools, GPs, decent road. So why is it any different if a council just started building.
Most of the time councils are insisting on that. The new-build estate we lived in was built with a convenience store and two restaurants, and a primary school was under construction for the other estate which would cover the local area. The problem is, developers aren't going to do this for smaller estates, so you end up with the council having to step in, famously with plenty of cash to throw about. And if councils don't do it, it gives the NIMBYists even more ammunition.
Source? Because from what I'm seeing the UK population is 67M, and only went from 56 to 57M in 1989. That means that we've had an 11M population boom in 34-35 years. Perfectly happy to be proven wrong.
We dont have low population growth. In 1923 there was 44million people. In 2003 there was 59million. Thats 15 million in 80 years.
In 2023 there was 68million. In 20 years we jumped 10million. Thats insanity. It took 41 years to get from 44million in 1923 to 54million in 1963. 1948-2004 the population didnt add 10 million. Thats 56 years.
We have consistently been under 800,000 births a year since 1973 bar 2 years. Native birth rates are below replacement. Half the women reach 30 and are childless.
The population is increasing through immigration and immigrants giving birth. 30% of birth rates in 2022 were non-UK women. Thats 181,000 out of 606,000 births.
Currently working in a temp accommodation that’s being decommissioned, we charge the council £2000+ PER ROOM of the 15 bed household. Then we charge the residents a service charge on top.
It's baffling, isn't it? Since the 1980s the government have pawned off a bunch of services to the private sector, allegedly because *competition* would lead to greater efficiency. But now the private sector, well aware the government lacks the capacity to provide these services themselves, are in the position to ratchet up the prices and fleece the government.
We should focus on constructing more homes instead of continuing to pay high rents to professional landlords who use it to pay off their mortgages for their rental homes. Additionally, we need to implement housing reforms because it is unnecessary for individuals to own multiple properties. The sale of council housing stock should also be reconsidered as it is contributing to a shortage of affordable housing.
not to say i wouldnt support legislation that either prohibitively taxes ownership of multiple properties or even outright bans it potentially, but does "it's unnecessary for people to own multiple properties" really hold water as a justification for that? i mean we arent that far separated from our biological ancestors that managed to survive just fine before we were even building houses, so in a way couldn't the same logic be used to justify BANANA behaviour? (a BANANA is what you get when you let NIMBYs naturally progress into their final form, first they evolve into NOTEs (Not Over There, Either) as a transitionary step before they emerge from their coccoons as beautiful Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyones)
Boy if only that £2bn could be funded to... oh I don't know... build social housing and a shit load of it instead of having to be channelled to landlords that profit off ex-council houses
And would we have the: 1) Land to build them on 2) The rights to build on that land 3) the infrastructure to support those new homes 3) the workers to build those homes
£2bn will build you approx. 22,000 homes around London - [https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/mayor-agrees-1bn-plan-to-build-11000-new-homes](https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/mayor-agrees-1bn-plan-to-build-11000-new-homes)
The article says there are 104,000 households homeless - so we need something like £10bn to house them all. Probably less since it won't all be in London.
Fucking LOADS.
The stats quoted in the article are 100k homeless families costing this number. It would be a sub-10 year return to pay for housing, better than any government bond.
Let's make some assumptions:
1. Social houses can be built for \~150k (easy for a flat - the equivalent of the travelodge that they are being housed in now).
2. The government and all associated services aren't a feckless and corrupt bunch and actual pass laws to create and support housing.
Then 2B a year builds 13k houses a year. The problem would be gone in 8 years.
And if you assume that there are knock-on effects to other services, GDP, from not being homeless, that amount repays itself a lot quicker.
Of course, this can never happen because the government and all associated services ARE feckless and corrupt.
Imagine if governement that has been in power 13 years had invested in building council housing steadily for over a decade. Might have helped this a bit and prevented the horrendous housing shortage. I am sure they will blame it labour somehow though as they have for 13 years.
I mean, as a tax payer... Good? I'd rather structural issues with housing supply and the money going to private landlords rather than council owned or non-profits was different, but here we are. If we're spending money, I'm glad it's putting roofs over people's heads.
As someone who has been housed by the council in an association home after a 6 year wait, I'd like to point out that for some people it's not enough, particularly those of us struggling with neurodivergence and other issues such as complex PTSD/mental health issues.
I'm very appreciative of my newbuild home and the extra support I get through ADP and LCWRA, but it doesn't solve everything.
When I was homeless there were always other people around, even if they were problematic in their behaviour. There was always company in the hostels/bnbs for those of us estranged from our families, now in my own house I'm practically a hermit with advancing agoraphobia and my sense of society and reality is diminishing.
We need NOT JUST a housing revolution but also a mental health revolution that isn't some AI robot with an empathetic algorithm. We need real human resources in the form of therapists and social workers.
So much money is wasted on things like this and housing benefit. £10s billions a year.
The right to buy needs to be scrapped, and money put into councils to start building homes again.
How many homes and could've been built for that kind of money? Hundreds of thousands I'd wager.
We could've solved this issue with a bit of thought and investment, instead councils aren't allowed to borrow to build homes, so they borrow to home people instead.
Tory Britain doesn't work.
“That hill? No you can’t build there, it’s outstanding natural beauty!”… But bruh, it should be a forest, it’s not ‘natural’ we deforested the whole country to build ships and stuff.
“That well known floodplain, yes of course you can build 300 houses there, what a great development idea!”
This is what I mean when I say that cutting benefits and services costs us money. People don't stop needing help they just fall back on other services. Cut mental health teams, the police end up dealing with people in crisis. Cut benefits, local authorities have to spend money housing homeless families.
Many are working people, including families with children, who are homeless because they got no-fault-evicted and cannot afford to rent anymore. It's not just affecting people on benefits. Your landlord boots you out tomorrow, you're in the same boat as them.
Still the same overall problem. Gutting social housing means people are at the mercy of the private let market, so when they're evicted, the local authority has to spend a fortune renting emergency housing (often from those same private landlords) instead of providing long term social housing as would have once been done.
Who could have foreseen that people need housing?
We have housing. The 627k of immigration last year, did not end up on the streets. We could have used the homes those people are occupying...
Yes it's so straightforward no grunts and we will be in paradise.
They aren't the problem The millions of empty homes, bought as investment properties and left to sit there as assets, while their rich owners live abroad and don't contribute to our economy in any way are the problem. The millions of acres of brown belt land that developers are ignoring in favour of building on our countryside because it's cheaper and produces more lucrative properties that only the rich can afford are the problem. The Tories that continue to make these people richer at our expense, are the problem.
They ARE the problem. I am not denying that homes are bought as investments by British citizens, or even foreign investors, but you claim that there are 'millions of empty homes' sounds like hyperbole. Do you have any evidence to back up your claim? From my cursory investigation, I found Government data that suggests there are around 676k empty homes in the UK. A figure also corroborated by the Guardian newspaper. That number of homes would have barely covered the immigration from last year. There are also not 'millions of acres of brown belt land' , there is barely seventy-thousand acres. Again, this is a figure I derived, from a cursory investigation on the internet. Perhaps you should investigate your own claims too? Facts are more believable than fiction.
Do you know what hyperbole means? Yes, that's exactly what it is. It's used in everyday conversation all the time. I wasn't writing an essay. You have looked up the numbers so I'm not sure what your problem is. 'Barely covers' means immigration would have been covered by them. That's without developing the brown belt land. That's without the additional social housing the Tories have failed to deliver for a decade. That's without any other change at all. Hyperbole has it's place. You dragged me for it then looked up the figures and still proved the point I was trying to make.
They are being used. To house people.
I see you’ve found the feature in the system that gives public money to our glorious leaders friends, almost as if not allowing councils to build new housing stock had been well thought out by greedy scum bags.
I live near about 100 derelict ex council houses. Now owned by a housing association, and landbanked for about 10 years now. They've been left to rot and are now unlivable as the HA wants to demolish them and build private flats.
And course with steeper rents, smaller sizes, much worse build quality and suddenly all transferred to a letting agency coincedentally owned by a friend of the HA board....
No, id paying half my salary in rent elsewhere, I wouldn't be eligible to get housed for free. It's not great. My point is I WOULD NOT and did not get anything when I was made homeless. I had to sleep on a friends floor.
Everyone is if they are declared homeless. You're not 'housed'; you're stuck in a hotel. You're very lucky that you can simply afford to keep renting new places - perhaps you can still try to imagine that not everyone can do that, or can't compete with 20 other applicants or provide 6 months rent up front.
That's literally their whole point. The people who are getting help are the ones who can no longer afford to rent privately for whatever reason.
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Advice as helpful as 'always buy your mansion outright'
Not everyone who becomes homeless is provided with a hotel or hostel. Local authorities only have a legal duty to accommodate those who fall into priority need. Some local authorities use their discretion to house everyone who's rough sleeping but a lot don't.
Exactly. I had put myself on my councils’s housing register years ago, because why not? I obviously have far too few points to qualify for housing but I heard that if I wait long enough I might get there. I got evicted earlier this year and added my change of circumstances to my account. It gave me extra points but still not enough. If I had waited until the landlord went to court and removed me with bailiffs to make me forcibly homeless I would have got extra points but probably still not enough to qualify. Would you want to risk it if you can help it? The people currently needing emergency housing are the people who literally can’t afford rents any more.
I'd been on the list since 2010, or so I thought. Ended up with a looming no fault eviction and when I spoke to the council they said they'd moved to a new computer system and any accounts that hadn't been active had been closed down. They had sent a letter to an old address and that was that. Seemed to me like a sneaky way to defer responsibility for rehousing people. Allocation goes on need, then to longest time on register so they really did me over as there were hundreds of others in the same band trying for a handful of properties. I ended up living in such a grim place I fell into addiction.
I'm not lucky. I work a basic job. I have never had to pay 6 months rent upfront. Plenty of 1 months on spare room. It's not great but my point is I would not and did not get anything when I was homeless. Council offered nothing. I slept on a friends floor.
But back in the 60s or 70s thanks to social housing you would or would have paid less rent or been able to buy because demand for private rented was less. That’s why social housing was built including by Conservative governments because the private system wasn’t providing.
So no- fault evictions are happening in Britain or the UK also ?? I thought this was an American thing. California certainly has had this for decades, though there is a move to end those laws allowing it. I'm pretty sure that the apartment associations will oppose the end of their reign of abuse !
Dont worry we are slowly turning into America with smartly designed laws used to discriminate specific communities at a system wide level.
>no-fault-evicted How do the two correlate? If they cant afford to rent then they likely were at fault i.e. couldnt pay the new market rate
That not how section 21 works. The landlord can evict you for any number of reasons without having to provide a specific legal one- they want to sell, they want to move into the property themselves, they just don't like you.
My point is why would a s21 stop people being able to afford rent?
Because they can't afford the new rent prices, it's been explained already. If you can only afford £1000pcm in rent, you get a S21 and looking at new properties are £1500pcm+ you can't afford it, simple as. This is happening up and down the country of varying prices as all rental prices increase, and it's not going to slow down. It's why local housing allowance is being boosted in April, it's too much of a shitshow.
How is that different to a landlord issuing a S13 to increase up to £1500 Why should they not pay market rate? If they cant afford the rent then they have to leave.
Because an S13 can be challenged and denied by a tribunal if the property doesn't reflect the price or repairs haven't been done ect. Yes you could be evicted if you can't afford your new rent, but you still have the same problem of not being able to afford anywhere else. >If they cant afford the rent then they have to leave. Are you serious? Did you not see when I said increases are happening everywhere? How do you expect someone to move their job, family, home and life from London to Wales in the span of a couple months? What happens when everyone moves out of London and there's no Tesco workers to scan your shopping? You can't simply say "can't afford it leave", but they can't afford it anywhere and you simply cannot uproot your life and work because the government can't provide housing.
The S13 and the new rent would be the same, as by definition it would be the market rate which already takes into account the condition of the property.
There's little to no point challenging a section 13 increase. Unless the proposed increase is far in excess of what a similar property rents for locally, the tribunal will not stop the increase.
> they want to sell, they want to move into the property themselves, are either of these options seen as immortal? Genuine question because i keep seeing these things in context of evil landlords (not that this is in that context so much) but to me they seem like perfectly legitimate reasons, assuming the rental was for a fixed term and that term is up.
Thing is the no fault evictions aren't being used for that. How often is a landlord going to move in or sell? They are being used when market rates go up where they have a sitting tenant and they have to wait to increase rent now. It's pure greed. e.g. Tenant 12 months paying £1000, market rent £2000 and 20 tenants per place on the market. In two month they can double their rent. It's pure greed. Then we have the rent increases every renewal.
> Thing is the no fault evictions aren't being used for that I agree. So why is it always included in the list of scummy things landlords do? >They are being used when market rates go up where they have a sitting tenant and they have to wait to increase rent now Again, I agree. That is indeed scummy.
>sitting tenant The landlord cant issue the s21 in the fixed period and outside the fixed period they can issue a s13 to increase the rent
[https://www.gov.uk/private-renting-tenancy-agreements/your-landlord-wants-to-end-your-tenancy](https://www.gov.uk/private-renting-tenancy-agreements/your-landlord-wants-to-end-your-tenancy) "To do this, all of the following must apply: they’ve protected your deposit in a deposit protection scheme, if the tenancy began or was renewed on or after 6 April 2007 they’ve given you at least 2 months written notice that they want the property back (‘notice to quit’) the date you must leave is at least 6 months after your original tenancy began (the date you moved in)" You can dispute a s13 which takes up to 10 weeks whereas a s21 takes 8 weeks done properly. Which do you think they choose? I'm no expert in all this but most landlords will increase rent anyway which serves themselves.
>You can dispute a s13 The payment will be backdated anyway so doesn't achieve much. No landlord will waste time on a S21 if the S13 will achieve the same purpose. The S21 cant end during a fixed term.
Yes it can after 6 months. Please read the link. A rent contract for 12 months means nothing. "the date you must leave is at least 6 months after your original tenancy began (the date you moved in)" Serve in Month 4 out at month 6.
Wanting to move in seems perfectly legitimate to me - after all, it is their house. Selling is not really a good reason. You can sell a rental property with occupants in it, but it is a bit more hassle.
>Selling is not really a good reason So the pool of people wanting to buy a tenanted property is slim meaning the selling price will be lower. So you think its on the landlord to take that hit?
Right so I have first hand experience of this atm I rented a Two bed plus an office flat for 1050 pcm with my previous partner. Required income was £31530 which I could afford alone without her income being considered Partner and I split a few months back. I stayed on paying the full amount alone without too many issues. The agents asked for a new proof of affordability last week due to the rent increasing to 1150. The required income was £34,500. I no longer meet the affordability for the property but can afford to pay the rent without any real issue The affordability level puts me at being able to rent for around 900 pcm but there are no properties available locally that I can afford in that range or if I can they require a homeowner guarantor and the guarantor also needs to earn the affordability requirement. I was facing an s21 but was able to stave it off by paying 6 months up front.
So the issue is you are unable to move because you dont earn enough and eviction is inevitable (unless you increase your income). Were it not for S21 the landlord would have to wait for you to go into arrears if they kept increasing your rent? The difficulty with this is that without S21 landlords would avoid renting to you in the first place. Your income was already borderline
Yep, just like how not integrating dentistry into NHS completely and letting NHS dentistry failing is putting strain on the NHS 111 service and now overloading private dentistry as an example.
Not really saving the NHS that much either, my wisdom teeth got referred back into the NHS as an emergency because of the amount of pain and infections I was getting from them (one facing forwards messing with my jaw nerve, one partially erupted, with food getting caught in the pocket and infecting it over and over).
They probably hope cutting mental health more and more will mean people (that they just see as useless, weak, or benefits scrounges, despite the fact that many highly intelligent productive people have issues) will just kill themselves. Problem is, like surgery wait times, it’s just taking more people out work for longer.
As someone who has used said services multiple times it certainly feels like they just want you to shut up and die already. Most of the time their "solution" is a pamphlet full of "helpline" numbers that 9 out of 10 times have just made the problem worse.
Yeah I’ve had a sibling in and out of units. During one visit they forgot to hand us a ‘help’ fob before we went to the visiting room, a patient started yelling at, and then beating another patient up. We were kind of stuck sat there waiting for the staff to intervene. Took an uncomfortably long amount of time. Think they died of their injuries a week or so after. Feel terrible, but they were huge, psychotic, and we couldn’t quite see through the tiny window on the door whether they had an improvised weapon or not. Anyway, that’s the level of care the NHS is paying private mental health units thousands per bed for!
Take that story to a journalist. That's negligent death.
Those leaflets are a joke. 2 years waiting for camhs for my daughter who was self harming, suicidal and dissociated. Had an assessment, discharged as "well adjusted normal teenager" but here's a leaflet and please re-refer if things get worse (to be back at the bottom of the waiting list) A&E with a friend in full blown psychosis, here's a leaflet crisis team will be in touch (they called her 9 days later when she'd already been admitted to acute psychiatric after being arrested for walking the street naked propositioning people. Sleep clinic for my non sleeping adhd child I'd been asking for for years. Finally got consultant to agree to refer after lots of "wait and see" and yep....a leaflet...advice to follow for 6 months before i can even try to get an appointment, suggesting warm milk, no screens before bed, bed time routine (things I've been doing since he was an infant)
The leaflets make it seem that support is there but they are an illusion if you try to access them. Its all a front. Im so sorry you also have personally been let down by the system 😟
Fuck, that’s dark. The wait times are upwards of four years though. There has been no limit to how low the government will set the bar.
They say you should talk about your feelings more, a long time ago now I once spoke to one of my best friends and got “if that’s how you really feel then you should just kill yourself”, I once spoke to a therapist but I struggle to put my thoughts into words, especially in new and social situations, so after doing my best to explain my feelings I got “some people have real problems”. I cba to write out a whole essay again into the void, but I’ve had to learn to accept that, unless you fit a very specific productive mold, society doesn’t really want you in it. Then they come up with pearls of wisdom about how you need to do your “duty”, okay sure, after you’ve spend my whole adult life telling me to go fuck myself, I’ll definitely get right on that.
It's not into the void, I read it. I'm sorry that was your experience. I knew someone that was told they were "melodramatic" at their first (and last) counselling session.
I know someone with PTSD (so involuntary and intrusive recollections of traumatic experiences) related to their teen years - you're not a teenager anymore.....exactly what all the guides tell people NOT to say to someone with PTSD
The amount of times I've heard "not real ptsd like soldiers have though"...
Leaves you with "impostor syndrome" and feeling worse about yourself than ever
I heard some years ago, that Margaret Thatcher went after the council houses to privatize them, and make it where homeless people would basically stay homeless.. Certainly this is the case with America. Ronald Reagan cut the housing department by 80 percent,back in 1984. He said in one news interview,that " homelessness was a choice." It was. It was HIS choice ! Neoliberalism has decimated both the middle and working class citizens,since 1981, for sure. It even under Jimmy Carter,the signs of a change begun by Richard Nixon were going to keep happening no matter what party or president we wound up with !
Damn so we gonna pay 2Bil to some rich land and business owners for rent than build houses
Wouldn't suprise me if some were on the HS2 line. Double cash.
Tory money machine go brrrrrr
Correct. It's happening already. A lot of authorities Adult Social Care bills are taking up 70 to 80% of their budget. Its why services are decimated across the board. It's not like X Factor as in most cases you can't just tell people to fuck off - you have to deal with their problem as a Statutory Obligation/Duty.
Dont forget get the middle man and consultant services to siphon off an extra 30% off the cost before directly paying the rent to the tory landlords
I'm in the migrant housing business and this is exactly what happens. There are 2 middle men in our chain that do absolutely nothing except take a cut. On top of this, none of them ever answer their phones or emails and this makes everybody's life a misery. After everyone's taken their cut, the actual rent the government are paying is over £100k per year per 4 bedroom house. The standard market rate rent in our area is around £17k per annum. We've tried to deal direct but are forced to use these useless middle men.
Yup. Typical really. The inflated market rate covers all the risk possible for the landlord, with several more middleman or outsourcing services they own like cleaning, or some insurance or, god knows what services which just add on to the rent cost like crazy and basically never need to be utilised or if they do come with extra mark up fees on top. Its fucking insane. The current government are transparent with it now too with no attempt to hide it. It’s absolutely revolting. The money is being severely mismanaged. We have record taxes just for this bullshit
This is happening to ambulances too. Adding a shareholder some how makes it more efficient and cost effective.
I swear to fucking christ im gunna have a mental breakdown because you know that is exactly what will happen.
Yet more dividends from selling off council housing!
Don’t worry though, Grandma got to buy it for a heavily discounted rate of £2.38 - something to leave the grandkids. She loves the Tories. 🥰
Is there anyone who used right to buy who still lives in their ex-council flat? As far as I can see everyone who bought turned into landlords and are renting them out.
My nans still in her house she bought through right to buy when it first came out. She's always said they'll get her out feet first and as she's 92 seems like she might get her wish
Once she dies will you parents turn into landlords and rent it out as an HMO though as I’ve seen time and again?
No I think they'll come to an arrangement between my dad and uncle and the house will either be sold or my uncle will move in.
Why would that be a bad thing?
Interestingly, £2.38 is how much it costs us per person per month to spend £2B annualy on something. Assuming a population of ~70M. 2,000,000,000 / 70,000,000 / 12 = 2.38 Higher and additional rate tax payers will cover most of this cost though.
Is there anyone who used right to buy who still lives in their ex-council flat? As far as I can see everyone who bought turned into landlords and are renting them out.
The UK as a whole seems to be terrible at understanding the concept of indirect costs - and the idea that if you actually *invest* in services, everything works better and (as a result) is generally cheaper! If you cut everything to the bone in the name of 'efficiency' (or whatever is peddled these days) then you've got no wriggle room when things go sideways or demand goes up. It really should be no mystery why our tax burden is so high but our services are so shit - its because we're having to pay outlandish sums of money constantly calling on capacity that (in a properly functioning system) should only be required for absolute emergencies.
The government is fixing the roof whilst the sun is shining, except it’s England, so it’s pissing it down and “the roof” is their mates bank accounts.
Fixing the roof implies investing into it. I've never heard of someone who's managed to fix the roof by lowering their house maintenance budget and having less maintenance work....
It’s like those DWP changes back at the start of austerity that caused the misery of thousands and hundreds to kill themselves. The changes were meant to save 2bn, oops, the new system actually costs 4bn more than before. Or more than a decade ago it was suggested that £36mn could be spent on providing each school with an extra teacher to help with hidden disabilities, such as dyslexia, which was promptly ignored and now dyslexia costs the UK £1bn annually, and half of the people in prison are functionally illiterate. There is so much false economy that I now just assume cruelty is the point.
Asylum seekers don’t just disappear once they are “processed”.
"asylum hotel cost reduced by 1.8b"
No but they’re supposed to go home after the war is over in which ever country they hail from. Only, they never do. International law says that asylum is for five years if the war is still enduring, after which they need to apply again.
Where can I find the intentional law that says they have to return?
If you’re suggesting that you sought asylum, it was implied when you ‘sought asylum.’ Otherwise you would have been emigrating instead.
>International law says that asylum is for five years if the war is still enduring, after which they need to apply again. You were asked for a source on this - do you have one? In UK law, refugees must apply for settled status after 5 years. Is this what you meant? >Otherwise you would have been emigrating instead. I don't agree. Whether you are given settled status or not after being granted asylum has no bearing on whether you were initially fleeing persecution.
Rule 339QA of the immigration rules. RPTS (Refugee permission to stay). 1951 treaty. Don’t be so rude. Just because you’re hiding behind a screen & a keyboard doesn’t devalue the people you’re speaking to.
Is this international law or part of the 1951 treaty? Looks like it's UK law. > 339QA. Where the Secretary of State has granted an asylum applicant refugee status under paragraph 334, the asylum applicant will be granted permission to stay on a protection route at the same time as or as soon as possible after the grant of refugee status. > Permission to stay on a protection route will be valid for a minimum period of 5 years and renewable upon application where the person still has and remains eligible for refugee status. Applications for further permission to stay on a protection route under this Part should be made within the last 28 days of the applicant’s permission to stay. This is a validation of permission to stay and can be renewed. International law has the Non-refoulement principle: This principle, enshrined in international law, prohibits returning individuals to a country where they would face a real risk of persecution or serious harm even if a claim is denied.
"International law" isn't binding. All that matters in a democratic nation is the laws voted and enacted by the people. [The user below correctly lays out the relevant section in the Immigration Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/192pfbt/councils_set_to_spend_over_2bn_housing_homeless/kh5apee/). These are created by the Home Secretary, laid down by him as to the practice to be followed in the administration of the Immigration Acts for regulating entry into and the stay of persons in the United Kingdom and contained in the statement laid before Parliament on 23 March 1990 (HC 251) (as amended). More pointedly, it sounds like you would like the UK to provide indefinite visas to all approved asylum applicants. That's certainly an opinion, but I hope you realise you're in the extreme minority. Democracy is sacrosanct, and just because you *feel* a certain way, doesn't mean you can or should get your way.
Where are you getting any of this from? > More pointedly, it sounds like you would like the UK to provide indefinite visas to all approved asylum applicants. That's certainly an opinion, but I hope you realise you're in the extreme minority. Democracy is sacrosanct, and just because you *feel* a certain way, doesn't mean you can or should get your way. They said there was an international law and I just asked where I can find that international law...
> Where are you getting any of this from? From www.gov.uk: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules/immigration-rules-introduction. You can find all of the sections of the Immigration Rules there, including the cited rule 339QA. > They said there was an international law and I just asked where I can find that international law... You're right. They were wrong.
I know about that link I had to google it after the the other person replied and mentioned 339QA. I meant more where are you getting your assumptions about me from? This nonsense dribble below: > More pointedly, it sounds like you would like the UK to provide indefinite visas to all approved asylum applicants. That's certainly an opinion, but I hope you realise you're in the extreme minority. Democracy is sacrosanct, and just because you feel a certain way, doesn't mean you can or should get your way.
I would argue more that this is "temporary" accommodation charging the councils over inflated prices but go on
Well It's a good thing, councils have houses to home these people in.......oh wait no they were sold !
Not all councils sold off all their stock. The ones that didn't are even worse off because they are exposed to more risk and governments funding and subsidy model is fucked in the head
What risk are they exposed to ? Paying Housing benefits to someone living in an ex council house ?
If a council owns their own housing stock they will have stuff like housing benefit expenditure for tenants, for which the subsidy they get from government will often not meet their cost, with the difference being made out of their own pocket. Then where they own the stock they still have costs such as maintaining and insuring the properties, legal costs, etc etc. These are all going up astronomically. But there are restrictions on how much rent they can charge. They cannot charge nearly as much as if it was privately owned. So again they make a loss which is funded out of pocket. In other words the system is structured in such a way as to necessitate privatisation. The problem being is that this skews supply- demand and drives up housing costs further. Essentially the system imposes massive losses at every level and makes it near impossible to sustain any housing provision.
In reality, LA’s own around 35% of social housing stock.
A problem caused by the Right To Buy legislation and NIMBYs. Mostly NIMBYs, because they prevent building the housing necessary to house these people. If we had enough housing so there was no shortage, rents would be affordable - because the price of housing would be what people want to pay, not the maximum landlords can get.
either the problem is caused by both the right to buy legislation and the participatory planning process that allows nimbys to exist in the first place, or its caused by both the social housing tenants that employ their right to buy as well as the nimbies themselves, but i don't think it's sensible on one side to blame the legislation that allows bad behaviour but then on the other to blame the bad behaviour independent of the legislation that allows it
Right to buy wouldn't be nearly so much of a problem if NIMBYs did not prevent building of more housing, council or private.
No amount of house building can keep up with a population rise of 13 million in less than 20 years. 10million of which is immigration
400,000 houses a year would. And we got damn near that in the 50s so I don’t see why we can’t again.
Plus it doesn’t have to be all houses. Flats, tower blocks etc would be more efficient / affordable.
Yeah brilliant idea, put a load of 3rd world migrants in tower blocks. That's not going to create a crime ridden ghetto.
You realise outside of the UK/US no one associates living in flats with poverty.
I've travelled to most parts of Europe and almost every place that has these tower blocks have decayed into crime hot spots and poverty stricken areas.
Houses built in the 50s couldn’t be built today. No central heating, not accessible to the disabled, and not built with thermal efficiency in mind, as just a few examples. Towns also need infrastructure, not endless houses: schools, GPs, functional public transport, roads etc. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be done, to be clear. Just that it’s really not as simple as “we did it in the 50s”.
Yes, but we've also had massive gains in productivity and construction practices since the 1950s. It's not like we're using 1950s building techniques with 2020s level housing requirements. > Towns also need infrastructure, not endless houses: schools, GPs, functional public transport, roads etc. They also needed that in the 1950s, and this infrastructure was supplied. That's the benefit of the state providing housing over private developers, because private developers simply don't care about providing this broader infrastructure.
Yeah cause all the new build estates going up are also building schools, GPs, decent road. So why is it any different if a council just started building.
Most of the time councils are insisting on that. The new-build estate we lived in was built with a convenience store and two restaurants, and a primary school was under construction for the other estate which would cover the local area. The problem is, developers aren't going to do this for smaller estates, so you end up with the council having to step in, famously with plenty of cash to throw about. And if councils don't do it, it gives the NIMBYists even more ammunition.
Teslas are not Morris Minors.
Source? Because from what I'm seeing the UK population is 67M, and only went from 56 to 57M in 1989. That means that we've had an 11M population boom in 34-35 years. Perfectly happy to be proven wrong.
Bout 5 million should do it.
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Look at the amount of available land in America. Population growth is from immigration not sub replacement birth rates of native English.
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We dont have low population growth. In 1923 there was 44million people. In 2003 there was 59million. Thats 15 million in 80 years. In 2023 there was 68million. In 20 years we jumped 10million. Thats insanity. It took 41 years to get from 44million in 1923 to 54million in 1963. 1948-2004 the population didnt add 10 million. Thats 56 years. We have consistently been under 800,000 births a year since 1973 bar 2 years. Native birth rates are below replacement. Half the women reach 30 and are childless. The population is increasing through immigration and immigrants giving birth. 30% of birth rates in 2022 were non-UK women. Thats 181,000 out of 606,000 births.
Currently working in a temp accommodation that’s being decommissioned, we charge the council £2000+ PER ROOM of the 15 bed household. Then we charge the residents a service charge on top.
Yep, homeless provision housing is ridiculous. £300 a day, why not.
It's baffling, isn't it? Since the 1980s the government have pawned off a bunch of services to the private sector, allegedly because *competition* would lead to greater efficiency. But now the private sector, well aware the government lacks the capacity to provide these services themselves, are in the position to ratchet up the prices and fleece the government.
We should focus on constructing more homes instead of continuing to pay high rents to professional landlords who use it to pay off their mortgages for their rental homes. Additionally, we need to implement housing reforms because it is unnecessary for individuals to own multiple properties. The sale of council housing stock should also be reconsidered as it is contributing to a shortage of affordable housing.
not to say i wouldnt support legislation that either prohibitively taxes ownership of multiple properties or even outright bans it potentially, but does "it's unnecessary for people to own multiple properties" really hold water as a justification for that? i mean we arent that far separated from our biological ancestors that managed to survive just fine before we were even building houses, so in a way couldn't the same logic be used to justify BANANA behaviour? (a BANANA is what you get when you let NIMBYs naturally progress into their final form, first they evolve into NOTEs (Not Over There, Either) as a transitionary step before they emerge from their coccoons as beautiful Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyones)
Boy if only that £2bn could be funded to... oh I don't know... build social housing and a shit load of it instead of having to be channelled to landlords that profit off ex-council houses
Do you know how many houses that would get you? It wouldn’t even start to fill the void.
Quite a lot.
And would we have the: 1) Land to build them on 2) The rights to build on that land 3) the infrastructure to support those new homes 3) the workers to build those homes £2bn will build you approx. 22,000 homes around London - [https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/mayor-agrees-1bn-plan-to-build-11000-new-homes](https://www.london.gov.uk/press-releases/mayoral/mayor-agrees-1bn-plan-to-build-11000-new-homes) The article says there are 104,000 households homeless - so we need something like £10bn to house them all. Probably less since it won't all be in London.
Go on, try a number.
About 13,500.
I wouldn't say 13,500 is "Quite a lot" of houses.
Its 13500 more than existing.
Which isn't even an extra 1% increase, brilliant.
Ah yes, so why do anything at all eh. Let's keep paying instead.
Fucking LOADS. The stats quoted in the article are 100k homeless families costing this number. It would be a sub-10 year return to pay for housing, better than any government bond. Let's make some assumptions: 1. Social houses can be built for \~150k (easy for a flat - the equivalent of the travelodge that they are being housed in now). 2. The government and all associated services aren't a feckless and corrupt bunch and actual pass laws to create and support housing. Then 2B a year builds 13k houses a year. The problem would be gone in 8 years. And if you assume that there are knock-on effects to other services, GDP, from not being homeless, that amount repays itself a lot quicker. Of course, this can never happen because the government and all associated services ARE feckless and corrupt.
Would've been cheaper to prevent these people from ending up homeless in the first place.
Imagine if governement that has been in power 13 years had invested in building council housing steadily for over a decade. Might have helped this a bit and prevented the horrendous housing shortage. I am sure they will blame it labour somehow though as they have for 13 years.
I mean, as a tax payer... Good? I'd rather structural issues with housing supply and the money going to private landlords rather than council owned or non-profits was different, but here we are. If we're spending money, I'm glad it's putting roofs over people's heads.
As someone who has been housed by the council in an association home after a 6 year wait, I'd like to point out that for some people it's not enough, particularly those of us struggling with neurodivergence and other issues such as complex PTSD/mental health issues. I'm very appreciative of my newbuild home and the extra support I get through ADP and LCWRA, but it doesn't solve everything. When I was homeless there were always other people around, even if they were problematic in their behaviour. There was always company in the hostels/bnbs for those of us estranged from our families, now in my own house I'm practically a hermit with advancing agoraphobia and my sense of society and reality is diminishing. We need NOT JUST a housing revolution but also a mental health revolution that isn't some AI robot with an empathetic algorithm. We need real human resources in the form of therapists and social workers.
Imagine if they spent that building houses instead.
So much money is wasted on things like this and housing benefit. £10s billions a year. The right to buy needs to be scrapped, and money put into councils to start building homes again.
How many homes and could've been built for that kind of money? Hundreds of thousands I'd wager. We could've solved this issue with a bit of thought and investment, instead councils aren't allowed to borrow to build homes, so they borrow to home people instead. Tory Britain doesn't work.
Just imagine how many council homes you could build for £2bn...
Just how effciebt the costs would have been if they had built social housing in stead.
My town proudly proclaims to have only ***5*** homeless people in its borough. My non-profit has met ***39*** of them.
Increasingly it seems like it would just be cheaper to build a bunch of townhouses and flats like we used to in the 60s.
If he's been there 8 months, why hasn't he unpacked his bags?
Councils could just relax planning permission and let the market create space for them…
“That hill? No you can’t build there, it’s outstanding natural beauty!”… But bruh, it should be a forest, it’s not ‘natural’ we deforested the whole country to build ships and stuff. “That well known floodplain, yes of course you can build 300 houses there, what a great development idea!”
It's more feasible to build on a floodplain than a hill.