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The social cleansing of social housing.

Dogsauce said:
If Labour had won the election, the only difference would be that they'd be announcing this today so that it'd be buried by the news focusing on the London bombing anniversary. The tories are more shameless and don't give a fuck anymore, they've won so can do whatever they want with no consequences.
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Only because we allow them.
I don't know how we can start to dis-allow them, though.
I hope we find a way, I couldn't face another five years of tory rule.
The public schoolboys have nothing in common with me.
Cameron is bad enough, but I couldn't fancy Boris being our prime minister either, or Osborne.
 
I would have been affected by this, and many ex colleagues and friends who are still in London will be. They are all social workers, teachers, housing workers and nurses working in central London who live in HA flats. Complete bastards the city can do without of course! Fortunately for us we were priced out of London even for intermediate market rent in 2013. :facepalm::(
 
panpete said:
Only because we allow them.
I don't know how we can start to dis-allow them, though.
I hope we find a way, I couldn't face another five years of tory rule.
The public schoolboys have nothing in common with me.
Cameron is bad enough, but I couldn't fancy Boris being our prime minister either, or Osborne.
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Osborne seems massively more hateful than Cameron these days, Cameron doesn't really believe in anything and seems to have landed the job just so he can win a popularity contest between Bullingdon wankers or something, I don't sense any conviction. The shit Osborne is spewing is far more ideologically motivated, he really does just want to destroy every aspect of collective provision. I don't know if it's from his heart or if he's being led by libertarian crackpots hiding behind the curtains, never seemed that bright and not up to the job, but definitely malevolent. Sometimes it feels like a massive conspiracy, with the media in lockstep, all these divide-and-rule scroungers programmes on TV setting the scene for hateful attacks on those who society should be supporting.

They also seem to have moved on from the demonisation of the unemployed to attacks on the working poor, as though people just aren't trying enough because their wages are shit.
 
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panpete said:
Sorry to sound patronising or that I am romanticising poverty.
I didn't mean to offend anyone *offers hand*
I could be in poverty, and I am dreading it.
I'd imagine that poverty would be too much for me and I would probably end up taking my own life as it would drag me down too much.
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No worries I know you didn't mean it. I just think it's worth pointing out that this is a bullshit notion pushed by the very people whose boots are on the necks of the people they claim are so happy.

On a separate note I'm actually in awe of the speed with which this policy is hitting home with people. I've already seen people on my Facebook feed, people who hate the Tories, actually come out with how it's immoral to stay in a council flat if earning that much, no wonder there's a housing crisis etc. My boss has already come out with similar things but it's difficult to counter when the barrage from the media is this relentless, and it really is relentless. There's absolutely no counter argument to any of it. The USSR had to put journalists in Gulags and pull out their finger nails to get this level of conformity. Here we just send them to private school and pay them a big fat salary.
 
Dogsauce said:
Osborne seems massively more hateful than Cameron these days, Cameron doesn't really believe in anything and seems to have landed the job just so he can win a popularity contest between Bullingdon wankers or something, I don't sense any conviction. The shit Osborne is spewing is far more ideologically motivated, he really does just want to destroy every aspect of collective provision. I don't know if it's from his heart or if he's being led by libertarian crackpots hiding behind the curtains, never seemed that bright and not up to the job, but definitely malevolent. Sometimes it feels like a massive conspiracy, with the media in lockstep, all these divide-and-rule scroungers programmes on TV setting the scene for hateful attacks on those who society should be supporting.

They also seemed to have moved on from the demonisation of the unemployed to attacks on the working poor, as though people just aren't trying enough because their wages are shit.
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I think that all of these politicians have been trained from a very tender young age to not feel, to dissociate, by trauma-based-mind-programmming.
It doesn't bear thinking about what they have been through as toddlers, to create the unfeeling characters, puppets that they are today.
Gangsters run the world, and they are probaly holding Osborne, Cameron, IDS etc at gunpoint to impose austerity, lest these politicians see their kids killed in front of them, or some other unthinkable threat.
In that way, I see them as human beings, victims, they don't know any better, asking them to feel is like asking us to feel a third leg, that we just don't have, likewise, they just don't have a 'heart' as it was fucked out of them when they were very young, by gangsters.
 
panpete said:
I think that all of these politicians have been trained from a very tender young age to not feel, to dissociate, by trauma-based-mind-programmming.
It doesn't bear thinking about what they have been through as toddlers, to create the unfeeling characters, puppets that they are today.
Gangsters run the world, and they are probaly holding Osborne, Cameron, IDS etc at gunpoint to impose austerity, lest these politicians see their kids killed in front of them, or some other unthinkable threat.
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Where the fuck are you getting all this stuff from, Pete?
 
tufty79 said:
That's a little OTT..
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It might seem extreme, but we are living in extreme times.
In order to impose evil on a population, you need dissociated mind controlled robots to do these things, and you need to 'condition' people in order to create characters that can commit evil acts with impunity.
As time goes by, it will start to make more sense, but I do accept that it does seem a little extreme right now.
 
panpete said:
I think that all of these politicians have been trained from a very tender young age to not feel, to dissociate, by trauma-based-mind-programmming.
It doesn't bear thinking about what they have been through as toddlers, to create the unfeeling characters, puppets that they are today.
Gangsters run the world, and they are probaly holding Osborne, Cameron, IDS etc at gunpoint to impose austerity, lest these politicians see their kids killed in front of them, or some other unthinkable threat.
In that way, I see them as human beings, victims, they don't know any better, asking them to feel is like asking us to feel a third leg, that we just don't have, likewise, they just don't have a 'heart' as it was fucked out of them when they were very young, by gangsters.
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They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
 
Pickman's model said:
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
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Hahahhahahah i like this poem.
Fucked up humans, fucked up minds.
 
panpete said:
Only because we allow them.
I don't know how we can start to dis-allow them, though.
I hope we find a way, I couldn't face another five years of tory rule.
The public schoolboys have nothing in common with me.
Cameron is bad enough, but I couldn't fancy Boris being our prime minister either, or Osborne.
Click to expand...
i am always surprised that anyone fancies boris. but there you go.
 
Quartz said:
Actually, I think it was from here.



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.
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Local authority social housing is housing owned by a local authority, which the local authority lets at a rent that it deems to be affordable by its residents. As most LA social housing is bought and paid for, or secured by the council's assets and income, the transaction - of paying rent to the owner of the housing - involves no "charity". A local authority is free to set whatever rent it wants, whether that's under "market" rent or not.
Other RSLs don't engage in charity or subsidy, either. Their status allows them certain tax breaks that allows them to keep rental costs down, that's all. Even the majority of housing trusts like Peabody and Guinness have generated so much income over the life of their housing, as to not require market-level rents.

Now please go beat yourself around the head with a hardback book. It might let some sense in.
 
JimW said:
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?
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If it's Quartz you're beating some sense into, then you are indeed one of the world's great humanitarians, Jim.
 
ViolentPanda said:
Local authority social housing is housing owned by a local authority, which the local authority lets at a rent that it deems to be affordable by its residents. As most LA social housing is bought and paid for, or secured by the council's assets and income, the transaction - of paying rent to the owner of the housing - involves no "charity". A local authority is free to set whatever rent it wants, whether that's under "market" rent or not.
Other RSLs don't engage in charity or subsidy, either. Their status allows them certain tax breaks that allows them to keep rental costs down, that's all. Even the majority of housing trusts like Peabody and Guinness have generated so much income over the life of their housing, as to not require market-level rents.

Now please go beat yourself around the head with a hardback book. It might let some sense in.
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On the topic of council rents, at my council they recently introduced something called target rents - if you are a completely new tenant - your rent is a target rent, if you are transferring to a new tenancy you pay the old rent , the differences at the moment are between a quid and a tenner a week more than the old rent - but over time this will increase the rents to all tenants - not sure of the rationale behind it to be honest - it has nothing (as far as I know) to do with proposals to charge tenants with a certain income a market rent.
 
Quartz said:
Unfortunately that is not true. Almost everyone can almost immediately avail themselves of the state education system and the NHS; councils and housing associations have criteria as to who gets priority, and waiting times are often years.
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He wasn't equating accessibility.


Housing benefit costs £25 Bn a year. I expect the government could build a few new towns in Cumbria or Northumberland or up round Thurso or Cape Wrath for that. Should be a nice little earner for them if council housing is as profitable as some say.
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As ever, you repeat the same ignorant "economics" you've spewed out before. You display no understanding of how government finance works, or how ideology affects what gets financed.
 
Quartz said:
Actually, I think it was from here.



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.
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social housing not "essentially charity", it is a social good whether in london, paris or berlin: or it should be. the way estates have been and are being turned into concentrations of the least well off and run down by councils is a great wrong.
 
Pickman's model said:
social housing not "essentially charity", it is a social good whether in london, paris or berlin: or it should be. the way estates have been and are being turned into concentrations of the least well off and run down by councils is a great wrong.
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Yep.
Let's be blunt about this. Social housing is a social good not least because the way it was historically-funded gave local authorities an income stream that could be used to effect other social interventions within their cachement, such as "outreach"-type social services. Effectively, social housing was something that helped multiply social good, and all without the use of "charity", however mugs like Quartz try to slice it.
All of those multiplying effects were known by Thatcher and those who followed her - that the dismantling of social housing would directly affect other social endeavours - and were ignored as irrelevant by people whose primary fixation was the market and marketisation. Residualisation on estates has been going on for over 35 years now, and the current trend for "regeneration" will act as yet another condensor, concentrating the so-called "underclass" (fuck 'em - I've got more class in my cock-end than most of our political class have in their entire being!) into ever-smaller "camps" . Soon enough we'll be told to be grateful that our "ghettos" aren't walled.
 
ViolentPanda said:
Yep.
Let's be blunt about this. Social housing is a social good not least because the way it was historically-funded gave local authorities an income stream that could be used to effect other social interventions within their cachement, such as "outreach"-type social services. Effectively, social housing was something that helped multiply social good, and all without the use of "charity", however mugs like Quartz try to slice it.
All of those multiplying effects were known by Thatcher and those who followed her - that the dismantling of social housing would directly affect other social endeavours - and were ignored as irrelevant by people whose primary fixation was the market and marketisation. Residualisation on estates has been going on for over 35 years now, and the current trend for "regeneration" will act as yet another condensor, concentrating the so-called "underclass" (fuck 'em - I've got more class in my cock-end than most of our political class have in their entire being!) into ever-smaller "camps" . Soon enough we'll be told to be grateful that our "ghettos" aren't walled.
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soon they will be walled
 
Seriously, I know some of us have had fall outs down the years and blah. I hold my hands up, know I can be a wind up of a prick.

But what in the name of all that is holy is to be done to stop these criminal sociopath scum?
 
taffboy gwyrdd said:
Seriously, I know some of us have had fall outs down the years and blah. I hold my hands up, know I can be a wind up of a prick.

But what in the name of all that is holy is to be done to stop these criminal sociopath scum?
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Fight. Fight like fuck. Challenge planning applications, go to your MP, go to your councillor, go to the ombudsman if you are being treated badly.

Just fight, never feel you are powerless. Challenge the system, never let it get to you.

I am lucky enough never to have lived on an estate earmarked for redevelopment or similar but I have been a private tenant and always stood up for my rights. Those in power rely on people not knowing their rights, and on people being passive.
 
marty21 said:
On the topic of council rents, at my council they recently introduced something called target rents - if you are a completely new tenant - your rent is a target rent, if you are transferring to a new tenancy you pay the old rent , the differences at the moment are between a quid and a tenner a week more than the old rent - but over time this will increase the rents to all tenants - not sure of the rationale behind it to be honest - it has nothing (as far as I know) to do with proposals to charge tenants with a certain income a market rent.
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This is presumably a consequence of the new guidance on Social Housing Rents that came into force in April.

For local authorities the basics are still the same as the regime put in place by Labour more than a decade ago. The idea was that there would be a standard formula for calculating social housing rents across all forms of social housing. This is called the 'formula rent' in the latest guidance. (Under the previous guidance it was known as a 'target rent'). To harmonize diverse existing rent levels a long term process of 'rent convergence' was laid down which was supposed to see social housing rents increased (or in some cases lowered) until they all reached 'formula rent' level, but did this in manageable increments. For many social landlords this still hasn't been achieved.

The new social rent guidance applicable from April ended 'rent convergence', changed the inflation measure to be used from RPI to CPI, and set maximum rent increases for the next ten years to CPI + 1%.

It sounds as if your Council is one of those where rents hadn't been fully converged and there is a gap between existing rents (where maximum increases are now capped more restrictively) and the 'formula rent'. I presume that up to now increases to achieve convergence were applied uniformly across all tenancies but since they are now capped, for new tenancies the full 'formula rent' is being charged.
 
Lurdan said:
This is presumably a consequence of the new guidance on Social Housing Rents that came into force in April.

For local authorities the basics are still the same as the regime put in place by Labour more than a decade ago. The idea was that there would be a standard formula for calculating social housing rents across all forms of social housing. This is called the 'formula rent' in the latest guidance. (Under the previous guidance it was known as a 'target rent'). To harmonize diverse existing rent levels a long term process of 'rent convergence' was laid down which was supposed to see social housing rents increased (or in some cases lowered) until they all reached 'formula rent' level, but did this in manageable increments. For many social landlords this still hasn't been achieved.

The new social rent guidance applicable from April ended 'rent convergence', changed the inflation measure to be used from RPI to CPI, and set maximum rent increases for the next ten years to CPI + 1%.

It sounds as if your Council is one of those where rents hadn't been fully converged and there is a gap between existing rents (where maximum increases are now capped more restrictively) and the 'formula rent'. I presume that up to now increases to achieve convergence were applied uniformly across all tenancies but since they are now capped, for new tenancies the full 'formula rent' is being charged.
Click to expand...

Initially the differences weren't significant, a few quid extra, but I came across a new tenancy today where the rent is around £40 extra, in other words if the new tenant had been a transfer rather than completely new , they'd have paid around £40 a week less rent. Grossly unfair.
 
muscovyduck said:
Someone mentioned the 'projects' of the USA, which is a term that's slid into use for youth hostels/supported accommodation in Birmingham already
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projects in the us, Banliuie (can't spell that) in france, Schemes in scotland, council estates here in england. I should imagine there a spanish equivalent n all
 
DotCommunist said:
projects in the us, Banliuie (can't spell that) in france, Schemes in scotland, council estates here in england. I should imagine there a spanish equivalent n all
Click to expand...

'Barrio' possibly, although that doesnt have quite the same connotations as those other words.
 
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