House of lords to make a decision on overcrowding

29/07/2008 12:46 pm

sorry, had to repost the link

http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/story.aspx?storycode=6500587

01/09/2008 10:15 am

with an aging population, we need people to produce more children

01/09/2008 11:34 pm

"we need people to produce more children"

Err...who says? Malthus is just waiting to be proved right you know....

Whilst I loathe Red-Green Neo-Marxist sandal wearing tree hugger types like the ludicrous Jonathan Porritt and the lamentable George Monbiot, Real Green (ie non-Marxist) organisations like the Optimum Population Trust are well on the money. Check out "The UK’s population problem" at:

http://www.optimumpopulation.org/opt.toomany.uk.html

The solution is not in building more housing. It's in there being less people. Given this reality, it is lunacy to go on paying benefits to breed. This must stop. Less people also means more housing to go round. Overcrowding problem solved! Kinda obvious when you think about it really.....


ILAG

30/07/2009 2:40 pm

Sorry I've only just read ILAG's post. Interesting thoughts there.

If we are going to control breeding rights are there criteria? IQ tests? Personality tests? Do we get special uniforms? If people violate their breeding orders what do we do with them? Will there be special facilities? Camps?

But of course they won't want to go to the camps so we'll need snatch squads to take them there. And they won't want to stay so we'll need razor wire and guard dogs. Machine gun posts. Should we have machine gun posts? And what do we do with the illegal offspring? It's hardly fair on law abiding breeders to let them live is it? I'm sure medical science can offer a humane solution.

Back in SaneWorld(tm) we provide housing, people live their lives. That's it. If government wants us to move everyone into 8 bedroom houses then fine, no problem just give us the land and the money and see us hand that in.

30/07/2009 8:35 pm

The balance of rights and responsibilities was at the heart of New Labour thinking. It is called "communitarianism" and specifically under New Labour (that is now old) was on a contractual basis - simply the balance of rights and responsibilities was contracted. It was based on philosophy of Etzioni and before the right wing gets excited it also strongly included more to be done by the richer to aid the poorer as part of this balance (ie more redistribution)

Dole or JSA was a classic case. To remain eligible for the dole (ie your right) you had to agree to responsibilities, such as phone 6 employers a week, send off 326 CVs, etc

Because welfare benefits can be changed so can these "contracts" of rights and responsibilities. Yet you cant practically have contracts on how many kids one can have (post Maoist China excepted) or link this to a tenure agreement.

So whilst Housing Benefit is a benefit that gives welfare in its lay sense, it is not a welfare benefit that can be changed either.

You cant reduce existing rights under a tenacy and you shouldnt be able to sue either if you initially rented a 3bed/5 and now there are 8 or 9 of you. Its not necessarily the perverse rewards ILAG discusses either with HB over welfare benefits as HB is paid on property size not number of occupants (with some minor excetions)

So the communitarian way wont and cant help ovecrowding the way it has 'helped' change the dole balance of rights and responsibilities. Im not an advocate or devotee of communitarianism anyway but it helps to explain why Scrumpy Jacques point cant be put into practice

31/07/2009 10:00 am

Kass, I have to agree. We need to house these people in decent properties whilst they exist and educate future generations not to bang so many kids out in the first place. I would consider introducing a change to the benefits system to discourage such high levels of childbirth in future generations, but it is not an acceptable solution to punish current generations for a situation we, the policy makers and housing providers, have created.

The only other comment I would make is that my belief is that Right to Buy has been a major contributor to this, with many families who do not qualify for social housing being forced to look at the lower end of the market (private rental in ex-council stock) and squeezing as many people in as possible. Because these properties aren't managed, this is never dealt with. I also think this has caused the perception that immigrants move to the top of the housing list; the homes they are in are not council homes, they are market rent homes on council estates.

31/07/2009 10:47 am

james yurky Fri, 31 Jul 2009 10:18 GMT....
YES, that would help, no doubt.

01/08/2009 1:14 am

In terms of RTB, as I have said in earlier posts, the absentee RTB landlord who rents their property back to the council for temporary accomodation for a tidy profit is truly a curse. The absentee RTB landlord is practically the enemy of the residential RTB owner occupier as the existence of these creatures essentially reverses the creation of mixed communities on housing estates. In order to kick start capital receipts to LAs, as part of a proposed re-invigorated RTB regime, featuring a return to the full 65% discounts of the 1980's, it would not be unreasonable to include a "no sub-let" clause in all future RTB leases so that these properties remain residential owner occupied in perpetuity. Clearly this could not work with houses where the freehold is sold, but it could very well with urban housing estate sales that are all leasehold in tenure.

03/08/2009 11:06 am

SO in a social housing market of chronic undersupply we see a proposal to return to RTB massive discounts!!

Sancho your tiliting at windmills agreeing with anything like that!

Just a thought - if all RTBs were taken back in social housing at the cost they were sold would we have a problem with undersupply or overcrowding. Sorry thats not a thought it a very valid point!!

But hey we know that isnt going to happen. Yet what continues to happen on this site and in government policy, is knee-jerk policy being decided based on what is happening in London and London alone.

Yes there are pockets of illegal sub-letting there that are high, im not denying this, but to steer national policy based on this is lunacy.

But this is characteristic of housing policy for the last few decades - incremental knee-jerk reactionary policy steers made not for the good of social housing, but only for the good of political votes.

03/08/2009 11:54 am

Yes, a full 65% discount is too much but a discount of, say, 30% would only mirror various low cost home ownership schemes and keep communities together.

I think buying back all the old RTBs was already my thought, so you're preaching to the converted there. I just think what we need to do is fix the mistake that was made before (allowing subletting) by buying them all back, then allow it again along the same lines as open market homebuy.

Interestingly Joe, you say that we are discussing things based on London alone, but also claim that there is a 'chronic undersupply' in housing. My understanding was that much of the midlands and north west had high void rates...

To be honest, I couldn't care less about national policy. It's all nonsense. However, I have seen estates with very high levels of RTB and very high levels of renting (I'm talking about completely legitimate renting of RTB properties here), where the vast majority of overcrowding, ASB and general wellbeing issues are from these properties, not the Council owned ones.

The policy can say what it likes, but there are people in our country who are in a living hell and it was created largely by RTB owners being allowed to let their properties.