The social cleansing of social housing.

[Dogsauce]

Would this policy be applied to people who pay rent and mortgage in a shared ownership property does anyone know?

This one worries me, as the gf could be hit by it (especially if I move in as planned later in the year). The 'rent' part of her shared ownership (she has 40%) is very cheap for London. It wouldn't be affordable if it was charged at market rent for the area. To be able to afford shared ownership in London you need a pretty decent income anyway, so I imagine it would clobber most people except those spoilt brats on a more modest income who bought with a large parental subsidy.

 

[Jackobi]

This (the concept that it's "subsidised") is another bit of tory bullshit that the labour party has consistently failed to call out in the last decade or two.

But once it has been proven to a Tory that council housing is not subsidised, the argument then turns to a 'lower than market rent' being the 'subsidy'.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Would this policy be applied to people who pay rent and mortgage in a shared ownership property does anyone know?

It wouldn't be social property, I don't see why it would come under this.

The Tories are absolutely fine with shared ownership stuff.

 

[oryx]

It wouldn't be social property, I don't see why it would come under this.

The Tories are absolutely fine with shared ownership stuff.

Yes, I would have thought that it affecting shared ownership would put people off it, and the Tories want to push home ownership rather than 'social rent'.

 

[Jackobi]

Yes, I would have thought that it affecting shared ownership would put people off it, and the Tories want to push home ownership rather than 'social rent'.

It saves on housing benefit, and if you cannot pay the mortgage whilst working hard doing the right thing and getting on, you're on the fucking street.

 

[xenon]

If you aren't a land owner or heavily in debt to live in a house, you are scum. Simple.

 

[Quartz]

i cant imagine theres many people on £60k plus in social housing but £30000 is just a couple in full time employment.
it just pushing people into right to buy

Do I remember correctly that one union leader used to live (maybe still does) in a council house despite being paid well over £60K? I'm guessing that's who he has in mind.

 

[Pickman's model]

Do I remember correctly that one union leader used to live (maybe still does) in a council house despite being paid well over £60K? I'm guessing that's who he has in mind.

are you thinking of bob crow? a) dead; b) mentioned a page or two back.

 

[Libertad]

Do I remember correctly that one union leader used to live (maybe still does) in a council house despite being paid well over £60K? I'm guessing that's who he has in mind.

Bob Crow.

 

[Pickman's model]

are you thinking of bob crow? a) dead; b) mentioned a page or two back.

Bob Crow.

 

[Libertad]

Simulpost.

 

[cesare]

Do I remember correctly that one union leader used to live (maybe still does) in a council house despite being paid well over £60K? I'm guessing that's who he has in mind.

Social housing should be available for all. Reducing and reducing the amount of social housing plus introducing penalties for higher wages is detrimental for all of us.

 

[ViolentPanda]

But once it has been proven to a Tory that council housing is not subsidised, the argument then turns to a 'lower than market rent' being the 'subsidy'.

The very laws around private property that your average Tory holds dear militate that a property owner may charge what they wish for the rental of that property - that's "the market" in action in just the same way as charging an exploitative rent is, but because it doesn't maximise the profit, the right can't quite get their heads around it.

 

[ViolentPanda]

If you aren't a land owner or heavily in debt to live in a house, you are scum. Simple.

We're all scum.
The difference being that your ruling classes foster a belief among themselves that being members of the ruling classes mitigates their scum-ness, whereas the rest of us knows it doesn't.

 

[muscovyduck]

Someone mentioned the 'projects' of the USA, which is a term that's slid into use for youth hostels/supported accommodation in Birmingham already

 

[DotCommunist]

Do I remember correctly that one union leader used to live (maybe still does) in a council house despite being paid well over £60K? I'm guessing that's who he has in mind.

yes a common right wing sneering point that you've half remembered from the telegraph. The point of me mentioning that at the start of the thread was to show how his attitude was correct, social housing should be universal. Not ghettos to house the poorest and refugees from countries we have bombed.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Social housing should be available for all. Reducing and reducing the amount of social housing plus introducing penalties for higher wages is detrimental for all of us.

I'm not convinced that any of our neoliberally-inclined party politicians give much of a fuck about detriment to wider society, just as long as their nests are feathered, and their brats provided for.
They will give a fuck, though, purely because they'll be made to by the people they dispossess.

 

[friendofdorothy]

Someone mentioned the 'projects' of the USA, which is a tern that's slid into use for youth hostels/supported accommodation in Birmingham already

arrrggh!

 

[friendofdorothy]

I'm not convinced that any of our neoliberally-inclined party politicians give much of a fuck about detriment to wider society, just as long as their nests are feathered, and their brats provided for.
They will give a fuck, though, purely because they'll be made to by the people they dispossess.

Really, how?

I though they were being sucussful so far in isolating themselves from the rest of us by effectively dividing us, vilifying the poor and banning homelessness on their doorsteps.

 

[oryx]

Someone mentioned the 'projects' of the USA, which is a term that's slid into use for youth hostels/supported accommodation in Birmingham already

It's been in use for years.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Really, how?

I though they were being sucussful so far in isolating themselves from the rest of us by effectively dividing us, vilifying the poor and banning homelessness on their doorsteps.

Because the "tipping point" is being reached, in my opinion, where "ordinary people" have so little left to lose through protest, that they'll get more involved in resistance - will have no choice but to, given the way any further direct or indirect benefit cuts will affect the housing stability (what there is of it) of "the working poor".
I was chatting with my dad yesterday (once-a-week phonecall to wildest Norfolk) and he was saying one of my more respectable cousins (dad's side of the family divide very well into "respectable" and "more crooked than a dog's hind leg"!) is setting up a phone/text tree in her part of Norwich (a sprawling mixed occupancy estate built in the 1930s) to head off evictions and repossessions. This is someone who even 5 years ago though that "activists are nutters". Yet she's seen working people and disabled people losing their homes for what seem to her to be ridiculous reasons - the "bedroom tax" and the benefits cap.

 

[Quartz]

yes a common right wing sneering point that you've half remembered from the telegraph.

Actually, I think it was from here.

The point of me mentioning that at the start of the thread was to show how his attitude was correct, social housing should be universal.

Sorry, I've got to disagree. Social housing is essentially charity, and I think that someone who no longer needs the charity should make way for someone who does.

 

[DotCommunist]

social housing is not charity you fruitcake.

 

[DotCommunist]

is the use of something necessary held under communal ownership charity now. Welcome to through the looking glass that is made of quartz

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Sorry, I've got to disagree. Social housing is essentially charity, and I think that someone who no longer needs the charity should make way for someone who does.

No it isn't; it's collective provision. It is something we agreed to provide collectively because it's a necessity like health care, education and a basic income. It just shows how far we have retreated from the limited collective gains of the 20th century that you could seriously come out with something so crass and insulting.

Louis MacNeice

 

[editor]

Social housing is essentially charity.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. The filthy scumbag Tories might be trying hard to redefine it as such, but council housing is not, and never has been a charity.

 

[xenon]

Social Housing is charity, in the same way state education, free at the point of use health care and public transport is. AKA... Well I'm sure you'll work it out Quartz

 

[JimW]

Housing provided for at sustainable cost (used to earn income for a lot of councils IIRC) is now seen as "charity" because of the contrast with the bleed-you-dry private sector. So am I now a humanitarian if I merely beat someone up when I could have killed them?

 

[superfly101]

The reason why rents are so cheep is down to the finance model.

Councils could use existing land it owned, benefit from low initial borrowing rates and greater economies of scale the more houses it ordered.

iirc After WWII each house had a life of 70-80 years, rents were set to cover the cost by year 40 leaving 30 odd years of profit.

I could be a little out here but just when Councils were about to hit a self financing/profit goldmine in the 80s something happened......

Now owning a house is being pushed because all the services provided for free by the NHS have been shifted on to Councils which means means testing. I don't think many people have quite twigged this yet because their granny got free care etc.

You pay twice the value of the house in interest to a bank, you become ill or old and need care and guess what legally the Council can and will force it's sale if you have over £37,000 in assets

http://www.ageuk.org.uk/home-and-care/care-homes/the-means-test-and-your-property/

Most Councils had actually been doing this illegally for over 10 years now as the referral from the NHS to the Council services was still covered by the free at point of entry monkier that Governed NHS treatment.

Because nobody objected or really knew nor cared because it would never happen to them it's now been made law o/

 

[RedDragon]

I had no idea I was being subsidised by £3,500 a year , having chosen not to exercise our right-to-buy 20 years ago, would it be OK if we asked for recompense for gallantly keeping our home within the public sector as a resource for a speculating Tory government to exploit - £200,00.00 should cover it.