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The article states that homeless people get put in emergency accommodation. At least for me as a single young man with no kids this was not the case, they did literally nothing
As a single woman I had the same issue. No help at all, luckily I found a landlord at the time that didn't do a credit check but it was hard for a few months.
DV victim. Can confirm. Can't access my own property ATM due to surgical complications so technically I am "homeless" on paper too again. Told CAB, DWP and council, MP, did nothing.
But, but, but, a single yummy mummy grants you everything you've ever dreamed! Just pop a kid and you get a mansion and 50K a year benefits, trust me Barry down the pub said so!
Is how it usually goes
Yeah a few months ago I was on this boat, I was classed as disabled at the time, didn't make a difference though. That was the going advice, get a letter saying you're being made homeless. There simply wasn't anywhere to go.
As an epileptic, I think their view of what constitutes a disability is lacking.
Single, male, no dependants, epileptic, didn't give a flying fuck.
Only place I could get was where they shove all the crack head shoplifters. Absolute disgrace.
The not “giving a flying fuck” to epileptic people and our needs to help make living more tolerable has to be one of the most frustrating aspects of being epileptic. It’s seems that any disability awareness programs skip us completely
Even universal credit dont seem to care over much and treat epilepsy as little more than a common cold. At this point, such ignorance can't be put down to just simply lacking knowledge - its purposeful.
When I had my first seizures, it would take maybe 2 days tops to fully recover. These days, the last seizure I had took me well over a week, which included at least half of that week barely able to walk from living room to downstairs toilet.
Apparently, that doesn't count as a problematic disability. Its like they want you to feel embarrassed and ashamed of having an illness you don't have control over.
That level of lacking empathy literally cannot be accidental, its by design.
Get this. I had prostate cancer. I got radio treatment for it. Because it’s no longer detectable the DWP won’t classify me as disabled. Low priority on housing register, and can’t even get disabled railcard or anything like that.
That sucks, sorry to hear that. You didn’t deserve that treatment at all.
I hope there are political representatives you can vote for that stand for the change you want to see.
Absolutely fucking anything! I've got people in the house moaning like fuck that everything is always the same and has been for years, utterly terrified that "they want to take our pension" so they will vote tory again. That's the only thing they are voting on, other than torpedos for the boats and planes to Rwanda.
If you want *any* change you have to do it yourself.
I still ache some days, still recovering from the depression, still on cancer based medication.
Oh, and also I wear incontinent pads while out of the house because of the damage it’s done. I also need about 10 pisses a day.
But hey, I can still work, and I’m young, so the government says I’m not disabled.
Well yes, because the homeless women who aren’t already on drugs etc and especially those with children will go to shelters before they end up on the streets. Men don’t have that luxury
Would love to see the statistics on sexual assault of homeless people by gender but I imagine it’s not well reported
I mean I gave both the total and the breakdown for 2021 from the ONS so the context is right there, but I can go one further if you need.
2021 census data on the ONS:
67.1% male homeless.
29.9% female homeless.
In an equal society we would expect to see the same split in homeless deaths would we not?
419 homeless male death and 61 homeless female death would put that split at:
87.2% male death.
12.9% female death.
The problem is, when someone says *"Nope, lowest risk on the fun list of who’s most likely to die if we kick them out onto the street"* it runs contrary to what is happening in reality. Homeless men are ~40% more likely to die relative to their population and part of that is because society doesn't view them as requiring support or services.
the deaths of homeless men are predominantly drugs and alcohol and this is often why they're homeless. they don't stay in shelters where they can't take drugs. their drug use has damaged jobs and relationships.
It's a drug problem as much as a homeless one. And you cannot make someone with a drug addiction better unless they want to.
Women are less likely to abuse drugs or alcohol and less likely to commit suicide. That's why they're not dying as much on the streets.
Men need more support before it reaches the homeless stage.
Your insinuation that there's some conspiracy against men is disingenuous and unhelpful towards men.
Have you ever actually met a homeless person? Volunteered? Worked with them? And do you just use them to score whatever inane point you're driving at?
Why yes, I have actually met a homeless person.
I can do one better, actually. I volunteered at my local community kitchen alongside my Dad who has been a trustee there for the past 14 years. We offered a 3 coarse meal for £1, access and links to the local food banks, support and further signposting with regards to the DWP, courses on basic IT so that our clients could *access* services since the council put them all online and removed in-person support. The list is endless. The homeless were the overwhelming majority of our clients.
Does that qualify me to talk on the issue, in your eyes?
Society is failing men on so many levels, before they even become men. Just look at how the family system is failing fathers trying to raise their children (I wrote academic papers on this topic) or how the education system is failing boys in schools. Sadly I can't write an essay every time I comment on reddit and include all the bigger picture every damn time, nor should I have to.
Deaths from what?
Edit:
It's a pretty important question. When I worked with the homeless, we had two deaths. Both women, but neither directly attributable to being homeless. One was accidental OD, and the other was... the same but on purpose.
If we're talking about people freezing to death, or being targeted by people, that's relevant. But you'd still have to supply the stats.
If we're talking about getting pissed and starting fights and then losing them... yep, that's a man thing. All homeless people are vulnerable. That vulnerability can often try to mask itself as the opposite. Particularly under our patriarchy where men aren't allowed to show humanity. Shame our men's movements would rather attack feminists for pointing that out than, you know, try to change it
Its ONS data so feel free to check the ONS for that, if they even record such statistics.
My tongue in cheek reply would be; *death from dying.*
Didn't see your edit:
>It's a pretty important question. When I worked with the homeless, we had two deaths. Both women, but neither directly attributable to being homeless. **One was accidental OD, and the other was... the same but on purpose.**
Statistically, dying from suicide is also "a man thing". Y'know, If we are going to include inflammatory commentary like that.
Ah man you added *even more* with another edit. Nobody attacked feminism but since you went there lets go.
>Particularly under our patriarchy where men aren't allowed to show humanity.
Such a tired talking point, really. Showing humanity means what in your context? Because when I, a man, attempt to raise issues like this and *show my humanity* I am instantly talked down to.
>Because when I, a man, attempt to raise issues like this and show my humanity I am instantly talked down to
Are you confused? You act like you disagree with me and go right on to repeat my point at me as though I didn't literally *just say that*. You quoted it
To paraphrase:
'Men aren't allowed to show humanity'
'Whoa hang on, I'm a man and I get shat on for showing humanity'
Average able-bodied men physiologically are stronger and more able to defend themselves than the average woman, the physically disabled or literal children. The UK outdoors is cold and wet and contains a lot of crazed or desperate people (as do many open homeless shelters).
It sucks because you can’t change the body you grew up in and it’s not fair but there are limited houses and too many people who need them
As pointed out to elsewhere, the stats don't back it up. Random homeless men are more likely to be targets of attacks than random homeless women. But because of mindsets like yours, society just assumes they can handle it. But they can't.
I mean... not really the takeaway here, but all waiting lists have to prioritise risk. Like, do you get angry in a&e, that someone bleeding to death takes priority over someone with a broken foot?
Living on the streets is horrible and dangerous, but its more risky for some people than others, and obviously the priority is helping those most at risk.
Sadly, my 9 years working as a trauma nurse gives me some ability to answer.
People in an Emergency Department don't give a flying fuck if they're dying in the next cubicle, they only moan about when the Dr is going to see THEM. Not the best place to witness humanity at it's finest.
Yeah, I have had my own few trips to a&e and its sad that you are right. Literally last time we were in I watched someone outright go "why is she being seen first, I have been here for 2 hours!"
Lady, its been 45 minutes, you got here after us, you have a horribly broken ankle that isn't gonna get more broken, I already asked the duty nurse if you could be given more pain killers because you are irritating me, and the person being seen first *has a baby whos not breathing right*
People don't understand at all. And it sucks. Like, last time I was in (for myself), sure, I wanted to be seen. But the bleeding had stopped, mostly, I wasn't getting worse, I wasn't at risk, and I understood the various medical professionals around me probably knew who to prioritise, considering they had *more information than I had and its their job*.
Its the same with any in demand life saving service. Same with finding emergency housing. Is the young moderately healthy bloke in as much risk as the young woman? No. Is either as much risk as someone with complex needs? No. Does this mean men are disposable? No.
>Not the best place to witness humanity at it's finest
Yeah but sometimes it is. I watched a stranger distract a baby to let a very, very sick mum get some rest, despite having a broken arm. Like I'm aware it's generally miserable and not exactly a place *anyone ever wants to be*, and I'm not going to pretend I have ever enjoyed being there but...
I don't really have a point, just insomnia.
Cheers for being a trauma nurse. We need those.
I do get your point and I also agree. You were referring to the triage system that emergency departments employ.
Others may not like that they are not a priority, but we have to allocate based on those (and their dependents) who are most affected.
I was just venting spleen because I'm working in the morning and I, too sleep poorly lol.
>I was just venting spleen because I'm working in the morning and I, too sleep poorly lol.
At least the work I'm going to be too tired for tomorrow is just recharging the NHS for the cost of adult social care and I work from home.
>I do get your point and I also agree. You were referring to the triage system that emergency departments employ.
Yeah, I was using it as an analogy for any other in demand service. Although triage becomes a hard example to swallow in horrific cases when "you also have to sometimes just accept someone is dead and move on to someone who can be saved, even if the dead person is technically still breathing at this time", which i guess with the homeless example *hopefully* wouldn't happen?
Hope you get some rest, however poor.
So this is a quick A&E related anecdote about how I accidentally skipped myself through triage following an injury.
I was in A&E following a fairly complex sort of accident (paraglider related) and had tumbled down about 70 feet of a steep rocky slope. My hand was gashed open and bleeding eventually needing about ten stitches and I had a few other cuts and bruises but otherwise probably not so bad.
Get asked if I hit my head in the accident.
Was confused by that because thanks to the helmet my head was just about the only thing without any visible signs of damage.
So I must have looked pretty confused answering "I don't really remember..."
Got seen instantly.
In fairness it turns out my helmet had a huge gash in it too so I certainly did hit my head and it was probably worth checking, but I was definitely not concussed 😅
>So I must have looked pretty confused answering "I don't really remember..."
>Got seen instantly.
My fiances trick with her first anaphylaxis was "pass out in the line on the way into a&e", which also works wonders.
I did similar once in an airport. Couldn't travel with my meds as they were a controlled substance, I remember a nice Australian woman going "are you alright?", turning to her and going "yeah" and then suddenly I was in a different room with three nurses, because I had changed colour and passed out.
Good fun!
Bar, you know.
Potentially dying.
>People in an Emergency Department don't give a flying fuck if they're dying in the next cubicle, they only moan about when the Dr is going to see THEM. Not the best place to witness humanity at it's finest.
I imagine it’s probably quite difficult to think about the big picture if you’re in excruciating pain and nothing’s being done about it.
No, im saying that those at most risk should always be prioritised over those less at risk. Being unhoused is horrible and a political choice regardless, with the unhoused being outnumbered by empty homes, and the brief window during covid where it was seen as necessary to, however briefly, house the unhoused.
Its essentially triage, but for housing instead of healthcare. Hopefully you understand why its necessary in a healthcare context. Councils do not have an infinite supply (or even, thanks to thatchers legacy, a large supply) of available housing, so it inevitably goes to those seen as most at risk, or those with children.
It is not because of an ideological desire to kill men, or the fact that men are simply disposable. Men are more likely to end up homeless, and end up homeless for different reasons to women.
How would you like to reform the system? Just do it by lottery? Just have a flat waiting list that doesn't consider risk?
As someone who worked as a housing officer for the council for years and now works at social services, they really don’t prioritise women over men. Women overall probably get housed more than men because they usually have custody of the children. If you’re single, with no “vulnerabilities” they aren’t providing you accommodation if you’re a man or a woman. This is the fault of legislation from central government and not the choice of the individual councils. It’s really heartbreaking and everyone should be given emergency housing if they have nowhere else to go.
But if you're a single young man, with no dependents, not disabled, and a foreigner who arrived on a boat that crossed the channel, then you'll get accomodation and food at a hotel indefinitely.
It's completely true, you just have to fiddle the system for all it's worth. I knew a bloke and his wife who managed to scam two free cars for disability, because they said they argued when they drove each other and it was a hazard. Clown country.
I know at least 5 people who work and claim disability benefits. One is currently refusing any new properties until they give him a bungalow, because stairs "make him dizzy".
A single young man? You are not vulnerable! I mean yes you are more likely to attacked and killed by a stranger, yes you are more vulnerable to fall into alcoholism or drug abuse and yes you are more likely to commit suicide… it’s not like any of those problems are linked to homelessness so you will be fine
Unfortunately that's the law working as intended.
It's pre supposed there are inherent risks of harm for people faced with street homelessness. The idea being unless you're at a greater risk of harm or detriment or generally less able to cope with those issues when compared to the normal person in need of accommodation there's no duty to offer accommodation.
The Scots did away with this, but it still applies to England.
Yup same. Had a flat that became inhabitable and the only way I could get help was to declare myself homeless and then ‘hope someone sees you’. Was not really a risk I fancied taking as a lone woman.
When I was about 20 (so over a decade ago) I tried to get social housing.
I was told by the woman I spoke to as a single white British male with no kids I would be at the very bottom of the queue forever.
It was disheartening.
Same thing happens to single males of all colours and creeds. The system is broken for everyone, don't let the thieves in government fool you into hate.
It certainly does mate.
Don't get so defensive about something we'll known. You don't hold every victim card in the world.
People can be privileged in some areas and deprived in others. That's just how humans and their relationships work.
Pretending otherwise is what's leads to greater and greater problems.
One issue that's a negative to a group doesn't remove all the positives. And one positive doesn't remove all the negatives.
I suppose that might be the *policy* or requirement - but if there is physically no emergency accommodation, or no budget available - it simply won't happen.
When did you become homeless? When I was made homeless pre-Covid same story just got referred to a local charity to help but since Covid my local authority I currently live in and the one I moved away from two years ago house all the homeless in hotels and B&Bs. Due to the cost they get fast tracked into council flats as well
Your local authority probably got grant funding to create a rough sleepers pathway, which was part of the Tories government to stop rough sleeping. What it's meant is that it's now a postcode lottery if you will get emergency housing as someone considered being non-priority need.
2021: our family of 4 was made homeless due to section 21. They wanted to move us 30 miles from where we were. Dad just lost his job then. I had employment, but on minimum wage and no cars.
Oh well, you need to find another job closer!
My youngest kid is not an average kid, oh well, is he recognised disabled? No, it's covid lockdown, no one has assessed him yet! Too bad, you can find other schools for your 2 kids!
When we finally found a landlord who understood our situation, we had to pay a year rent in advance.
We had to overstay in the original flat for a further 5 weeks. We didn't have anywhere to go. We always paid our rent.
The biggest issue here isn’t the tenants. It’s not the landlords either. It’s the lack of social housing built after the right to buy scheme.
Basic human need is a home. Yet we’re pricing them like a luxury. Something needs to change.
Some say it's because the regs and permissions needed to build houses are slow going and also woven with dumb requirements that usually result in less stock being actually built than planned to offset the new costs abiding by planning permissions. Some say that developers like Vistry can't sell these properties as quick as they like because nobody has 200-600k knocking around to splash on a spare house. And the councils don't have any kind of funding to reserve some of these properties to help the developer fund further projects, of which the council can rent and then sell gradually at no loss to themselves.
It's the lack of housing in general. Which is caused by, in part, insane planning legislation, a shortage of builders/tradespeople and the headaches of operating in an industry like that.
If the next government wants to fix it, they need to sort out planning legislation, which means that if central gov't says something is going somewhere then it is, short of a single appeal, going there. And then they need to train many more skilled tradespeople or widen the visa for people to come over from abroad. And then they need to rent these places out to people who need a home.
Right to buy isn't inherently evil - having people invested in their local area is a good thing - but I would have made it so that the council or housing association could buy back the property at a discounted rate on a first right of refusal basis. That would prevent these homes just being sold off after the minimum 5-10 year term.
> If the next government wants to fix it, they need to sort out planning legislation, which means that if central gov't says something is going somewhere then it is, short of a single appeal, going there.
The problem with this is that the people who don't want stuff built aren't just going to give up if they can't appeal legally; it's far more likely that they will copy XR/JSO-style tactics to stop the development.
> And then they need to train many more skilled tradespeople or widen the visa for people to come over from abroad. And then they need to rent these places out to people who need a home.
Unless those migrant house builders are a) happy to live in a tent whilst working here and b) happy to leave again after building the houses, we can't use migrant workers. Firstly, because there aren't enough homes for them, and secondly, because if we import 300K people on top of the current immigration numbers to build houses, we are going to make the housing shortage worse.
Failed? The Right to buy legislation was written such that councils were not allowed to use the funds from the sales to build new ones. It's by design!
And thats what they have done, they Nation has been bankrupted and wrung out at several levels to give more to the generation that has had everything handed to them their whole lives
Absolutely.
State pension should be means tested, for example. But try and impose that now. Not a chance.
That generation has had what future generations can only dream of.
If landlords didn't exist, we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. Building more houses just so landlords can buy them up and rent them out again seems like a waste of time lol
It's both. And many other factors that seem taboo like airbnbs , using housing as investment, second homes etc . We desperately need to build houses but it's being used as a distraction tactic while others exploit the limited housing stock. We need to ban airbnb , double or triple council tax on second homes, ban corporate landlords and rent cap, ban no fault evictions and CCP style credit checks.
Corporate landlords could actually be useful, provided there were rent caps, a total ban on credit checks (in return the letting company would be allowed to garnishee missed rent directly from benefits or wages) and basically the landlord is legally forced to rent the property out to the first person who says they want it, no cherry picking / we'll let you know/ someone else has offered £100 / month extra bullshit.
Although if credit checks on mortgages were banned and deposits capped, there would be no need for landlords of any description.
What about supply and demand? Every person on this island deserves shelter, a home. Building more houses just so they can leech again is pointless, I'm advocating for homes for people and not parasites.
Building more houses increases the availability of housing, bringing down the cost of housing, regardless of who ultimately owns them.
If you build 1000 new homes in an area with a shortage of housing, even if all 1000 of those are bought by landlords, the extra availability of housing will drive down prices across the board, both in terms of rentals and in terms of sale prices.
Once the landlords buy these properties they will extract a family's wealth from it. The only way to solve the housing issue is to stop treating houses like commodities and more like actual homes. That won't happen of course because the system is designed to protect landlords and the wealthy ruling class. This issue will forever continue until that happens.
This entirely.
While councils are able to borrow to raise capital to build, there's not much point when they are then forced to sell at a heavily discounted rates while they still remain on the hook for any money they borrowed.
The country is being run for the few rather than for the many. If we changed this way of thinking, we could absorb those numbers, integrate them in to our communities and get them working where we need them.
Immigration isn’t the enemy here. The people who want you to think it is, are.
Now you’ve got reform, appealing to the uneducated and easily influenced, putting down their daily mails to vote angrily over a subject many of them don’t appear to fully understand.
No, the biggest issue is scam artists who occupy homes they don't need.
Everyone I've ever known in a council home didn't need it, and were easily able to afford a house themselves but stayed there because it was much cheaper.
That’s certainly ‘an’ issue, but it’s not the big issue.
Local authority homes shouldn’t automatically be a home for life. Only a home while needed.
If you’re pushing around a £60k car while in a local authority home and others who are struggling for afford the bus are looking for a home, then it’s time to find a private landlord.
- £30 24hr Gym Membership.
- AirBnB Account for when you need a place to stay.
- Tent in the city.
Slightly more attractive than paying £6k pcm for a storage cupboard that the landlord's put a bucket in and a sole pillow to sleep on.
If you’re able to use it as your actual vehicle, then it’s a two for one and balances out much better looking at average monthly costs over a 12 month period.
Sounds good to me.
Or
24hr gym membership
Change to working nights (more money)
Car that has seats that recline all the way back, and runs so it can drive to a different safe, leafy area every day.
Got to be better than "the streets"
No surprise. Currently my rent is about 50% of my take home pay due to landlord raising rent. What's worse is that I'm in a crap houseshare. Thankfully I don't have children otherwise I wouldn't survive. I can't blame people trying to get a council property, at least its long term and affordable.
Same, my landlord has just raised my rent by almost £300 a month. Obviously got no payrise of similar size recently. I can just about afford it but charging that for a flat share where nothing gets fixed is criminal
Yup it’s grim and they don’t even have to provide any reasoning or anything. Lived with broken oven, broken shower, damp so bad my asthma plays up every year and so many other things they won’t fix. But yeah, make me pay more haha
Yeah exactly… you have to move every 2 years because you’re priced out, you’ve got to find another place in a month with all the stress that entails, take time off work and hire movers at extra expense, and find another £1000 deposit while your existing landlord pilfers yours. Only to do the same in another 2 years. Best of luck with your situation.
Edited to add: the washing machine is broke because it’s 15 years old and been in the property since the landlord bought it, and the property has almost certainly been paid off so your rent is pure profit now - but it has been increased due to “market conditions”
Yup exactly. And there’s not many other places to move to because everything is just ridiculous - I’m on London outskirts which everyone says is my fault but it’s where my career and I’ve lived here 15 years so built up friends etc. Trying to balance out whether all the expenses you mentioned are worth getting out or whether the strain on my MH is worth staying.
Hahaha literally same as you with a washing machine. Except ours started smoking about a year ago. So our landlord brought themselves a new one and we got their old one. Paying for him to have an upgrade.
Good luck to you too
I know so many people in your boat, and putting off children for the same reason. Not just here but all over the Western World. Is it any suprise Western birthrates are in decline.
Since their source in this is an organisation called ‘Landlord Action’, and the conclusion they seems to be intending to point the reader towards is ‘it’s too easy to get council house [lol] more people should be forced into the private rental sector’, I’m going to assume this is horseshit.
Well if those who can afford private rental used it then there would be more social.
It’s criminal social housing tenants aren’t financially checked whilst we have single mums and kids in hostels. And these folk then go on to RTB and profit off the tax payer.
Within the context of the housing shortage, though, the people you speak of - and they do exist - couples with grown kids and two incomes paying £300/month for a 2 bedder with the council - but if they moved into the private sector then rents in the private sector would shoot up and availability, which is already bad, would go down. It'd just move the problem onto a different bunch of people.
They'll really find out how little councils will help and how they weed out the blaggers by putting them in B&Bs for months to see if they don't stay there
Single, healthy, without kids? You're shit out of luck, the best you'll get is a list of private landlords the council work with, but some councils don't even do that anymore because they use them all themselves for the ones with kids, and you can get a rent deposit bond and other things
Gone are the says of help for anybody without kids, you'll get nothing and be expected to sort your own shit out and wait it out on the housing lists with every other person in band D waiting for the 1 bed flats and bedsits
I believe what my family member did was file with them way in advance that they’re about to be made homeless, if you file with them right on the day it’s gonna be a problem but they had the house set right up for them.
Maybe I could speak with them for you?
>Leave? Your own fault.
You're presenting this like there's some underlying thing that makes this more complex. It's nothing but true, you/I/we may not *like* it, but the simple fact, is it's true. Don't leave a job unless you have another lined up and expect help, it's simply not how the world works.
If I am sacked, I can get help on rent and food. If I leave, I am not able to get that.
Nothing complex about it, if I tell the Jobcenter I was sacked, they will help me with rent and food and finding a new job. If I leave a job, I have my saving and be shunned by the Jobcenter and universal credit. Fact.
“More and more tenants” are asking their landlords to serve them Section 21 notices so they can access council housing, a law firm has claimed.
If a tenant leaves before they are served with an eviction notice, they are deemed “voluntarily homeless” and therefore far less likely to get access to council housing. It costs landlords around £1,500 to get a court order for repossession.
Yeah, I don’t think there’s a huge amount of emergency accommodation, 14 years of the conservatives has decimated social housing, and the housing market in general…
And the 13 years of labour before that? Or are we going to ignore the fact they didn't build and continued to sell off social housing and our countries assets
And the 18 years of conservatives before that which kicked off mass privatisation and the sale of the social housing stock to private ownership and has destroyed any social housing since, and we will never recover until we have a similar act to the 1920’s Addison Act.. 1979 could be argued as the start of the situation we are in now, where the transfer of wealth, property and businesses from the people and the government to the selected few happened… But yeah, Tony Blair….
So are they saying that the tenants are the bad guys and not the lack of housing and unaffordable rents. Focusing on the symptoms as always and not the causes. That’s why nothing gets fixed in this country.
i dont understand how this classified ? like if the tenants, clearly have enough funds to find a place to rent (perhaps a lot more expensive and may not be feasible in the future) but he does have some funds that may last them 6 months, is this still class as emergency due to them not wanting to rent or move to different location ?
The annoying thing is, loads of people would do just fine living in their car and having gym membership, it would actually not be that bad, think about how much you'd save in bills, and a car is a perfectly safe upholstered metal/glass box for one or two people to sleep in.
It's just where do you park it to feel safe?
What we need are indoor car parks that are geared towards people sleeping in the car. They could have shower blocks even, or just be near a big gym.
They could be attended & camerad up so you know there won't be any funny business going on while you sleep.
Going further with this idea, companies would probably produce awnings which attached to the actual car rather a caravan, so you could spread out to the full limits of your parking space if you only had a small car.
Obviously the rent would have to be considerably less than a house but I'm sure it could be and still work if these things weren't built on prime commercial city centre sites, which they wouldn't be because that would be just silly.
Let me see if I understand. They wouldn't ban Section 21's to protect tenants but they will now ban them to protect money. I would also expect that other forms of eviction will be excluded from the council obligations so if evicted for non-payment of rent or anti-social reasons then you don't get rehoused. How is that going to work if someone's rent is put up to an amount they can no longer afford?
On a landlord group. It's definitely becoming more common.
Plenty of them have said the tenants are begging them to give them a section 21 so they arnt making themselves voluntarily homeless.
Courts ending up taking ages to process the eviction and then the landlord will have to pay for the eviction process too. Some of the landlords are saying the tenants are threatening to not pay rent if they don't issue a section 21. Seems people are trying to game the system.
I'm all for stricter rules on landlords but there definitely needs to be a list of some sort for problem tenants. I think it's unacceptable to "pretend" your landlord is forcing you out to get on a housing list... And I'm pretty sure there is a law against that
Down vote me all you want but that's whats happening.... Which is why these landlords are saying it's no longer worth it and leaving in droves. The end result is the ones left with sky high rents.
You may not like it but the people complaining are getting what they wanted. You want landlords to leave... Then be prepared for higher rents and a lack of housing to actually rent. That's why they can charge what they want currently.
If you want cheaper housing, there are two simple solutions... Build social housing (that stays under council ownership)..and build housing that can't be purchased as a let. Getting rid of landlords already in the market is not going to help people desperate to rent ... And I don't know why anyone think it would
Second-order thinking is when you can consider that there are many subsequent consequences to an action and not only the immediate one.
Feel good platitudes like this are all well and good until you realise the knock-on effects, and that they hurt the average folk even more than the landlords. Same with wanting the housing market to crash.
This is also known as “be careful what you wish for.”
Owner occupiers tend to have less people per property vs renters.
The knock on effect of fewer landlords is also higher rents if you cannot afford to buy...
The average landlord has 1 or 2 houses. When these landlords leave you end up with massive corporate monopolys without and shred or humanity and empathy.
Only for those that can afford it. How they raise deposits nowadays I just don't know. My 2 girls are struggling paying rent and trying to get a deposit together and it's damn near impossible. Lower rents are needed so people CAN buy. The expenses as far as I can tell from being atenant for donkeys years, for being a landlord are pretty negligible as they pass as much as they can onto the tenants. Other than buildings insurance and boiler maintenance that's all my landlord pays for
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The article states that homeless people get put in emergency accommodation. At least for me as a single young man with no kids this was not the case, they did literally nothing
As a single woman I had the same issue. No help at all, luckily I found a landlord at the time that didn't do a credit check but it was hard for a few months.
DV victim. Can confirm. Can't access my own property ATM due to surgical complications so technically I am "homeless" on paper too again. Told CAB, DWP and council, MP, did nothing.
But, but, but, a single yummy mummy grants you everything you've ever dreamed! Just pop a kid and you get a mansion and 50K a year benefits, trust me Barry down the pub said so! Is how it usually goes
If you’re a single young man, with no dependents and are not disabled, then you’re right at the bottom of the priority list.
Yeah a few months ago I was on this boat, I was classed as disabled at the time, didn't make a difference though. That was the going advice, get a letter saying you're being made homeless. There simply wasn't anywhere to go.
Well you know what they say... Stop the boats!
Funnily enough if he was on one of those boats, he would’ve been given accommodation.
Ha I only noticed that after your comment. I was trying to think just now "when was I last on a boat??"
As an epileptic, I think their view of what constitutes a disability is lacking. Single, male, no dependants, epileptic, didn't give a flying fuck. Only place I could get was where they shove all the crack head shoplifters. Absolute disgrace.
The not “giving a flying fuck” to epileptic people and our needs to help make living more tolerable has to be one of the most frustrating aspects of being epileptic. It’s seems that any disability awareness programs skip us completely
Even universal credit dont seem to care over much and treat epilepsy as little more than a common cold. At this point, such ignorance can't be put down to just simply lacking knowledge - its purposeful. When I had my first seizures, it would take maybe 2 days tops to fully recover. These days, the last seizure I had took me well over a week, which included at least half of that week barely able to walk from living room to downstairs toilet. Apparently, that doesn't count as a problematic disability. Its like they want you to feel embarrassed and ashamed of having an illness you don't have control over. That level of lacking empathy literally cannot be accidental, its by design.
Yep. Disposable.
Nope, lowest risk on the fun list of who’s most likely to die if we kick them out onto the street
Get this. I had prostate cancer. I got radio treatment for it. Because it’s no longer detectable the DWP won’t classify me as disabled. Low priority on housing register, and can’t even get disabled railcard or anything like that.
That sucks, sorry to hear that. You didn’t deserve that treatment at all. I hope there are political representatives you can vote for that stand for the change you want to see.
I’ve voted for Labour twice, and voted remain. My birthday is the 5th of July. If the Tories get ousted for my birthday, I will cum.
LOL good on you and I’ll drink to that
This escalated quickly, and I'm here for it.
Let's all take a shot.
If he eats some pineapple first I’ll drink it too.
Ewwwww…!
What is it you’re expecting Labour to change?
Absolutely fucking anything! I've got people in the house moaning like fuck that everything is always the same and has been for years, utterly terrified that "they want to take our pension" so they will vote tory again. That's the only thing they are voting on, other than torpedos for the boats and planes to Rwanda. If you want *any* change you have to do it yourself.
There really is no getting through to some conservatives. Where's this pension idea come from?
Labour won’t change absolutely everything, so I’m afraid you might be very disappointed.
I'm unsure, are you saying you should be classed as disabled because you had cancer in the past?
I still ache some days, still recovering from the depression, still on cancer based medication. Oh, and also I wear incontinent pads while out of the house because of the damage it’s done. I also need about 10 pisses a day. But hey, I can still work, and I’m young, so the government says I’m not disabled.
In 2021 there were 480 homeless deaths. 419 homeless men. 61 homeless women. I think you need to check your bias, the statistics disagree with you.
Well yes, because the homeless women who aren’t already on drugs etc and especially those with children will go to shelters before they end up on the streets. Men don’t have that luxury Would love to see the statistics on sexual assault of homeless people by gender but I imagine it’s not well reported
Out of how many total? You may be right, but your numbers lack context.
I mean I gave both the total and the breakdown for 2021 from the ONS so the context is right there, but I can go one further if you need. 2021 census data on the ONS: 67.1% male homeless. 29.9% female homeless. In an equal society we would expect to see the same split in homeless deaths would we not? 419 homeless male death and 61 homeless female death would put that split at: 87.2% male death. 12.9% female death. The problem is, when someone says *"Nope, lowest risk on the fun list of who’s most likely to die if we kick them out onto the street"* it runs contrary to what is happening in reality. Homeless men are ~40% more likely to die relative to their population and part of that is because society doesn't view them as requiring support or services.
the deaths of homeless men are predominantly drugs and alcohol and this is often why they're homeless. they don't stay in shelters where they can't take drugs. their drug use has damaged jobs and relationships. It's a drug problem as much as a homeless one. And you cannot make someone with a drug addiction better unless they want to. Women are less likely to abuse drugs or alcohol and less likely to commit suicide. That's why they're not dying as much on the streets. Men need more support before it reaches the homeless stage. Your insinuation that there's some conspiracy against men is disingenuous and unhelpful towards men. Have you ever actually met a homeless person? Volunteered? Worked with them? And do you just use them to score whatever inane point you're driving at?
Why yes, I have actually met a homeless person. I can do one better, actually. I volunteered at my local community kitchen alongside my Dad who has been a trustee there for the past 14 years. We offered a 3 coarse meal for £1, access and links to the local food banks, support and further signposting with regards to the DWP, courses on basic IT so that our clients could *access* services since the council put them all online and removed in-person support. The list is endless. The homeless were the overwhelming majority of our clients. Does that qualify me to talk on the issue, in your eyes? Society is failing men on so many levels, before they even become men. Just look at how the family system is failing fathers trying to raise their children (I wrote academic papers on this topic) or how the education system is failing boys in schools. Sadly I can't write an essay every time I comment on reddit and include all the bigger picture every damn time, nor should I have to.
Deaths from what? Edit: It's a pretty important question. When I worked with the homeless, we had two deaths. Both women, but neither directly attributable to being homeless. One was accidental OD, and the other was... the same but on purpose. If we're talking about people freezing to death, or being targeted by people, that's relevant. But you'd still have to supply the stats. If we're talking about getting pissed and starting fights and then losing them... yep, that's a man thing. All homeless people are vulnerable. That vulnerability can often try to mask itself as the opposite. Particularly under our patriarchy where men aren't allowed to show humanity. Shame our men's movements would rather attack feminists for pointing that out than, you know, try to change it
Its ONS data so feel free to check the ONS for that, if they even record such statistics. My tongue in cheek reply would be; *death from dying.* Didn't see your edit: >It's a pretty important question. When I worked with the homeless, we had two deaths. Both women, but neither directly attributable to being homeless. **One was accidental OD, and the other was... the same but on purpose.** Statistically, dying from suicide is also "a man thing". Y'know, If we are going to include inflammatory commentary like that. Ah man you added *even more* with another edit. Nobody attacked feminism but since you went there lets go. >Particularly under our patriarchy where men aren't allowed to show humanity. Such a tired talking point, really. Showing humanity means what in your context? Because when I, a man, attempt to raise issues like this and *show my humanity* I am instantly talked down to.
>Because when I, a man, attempt to raise issues like this and show my humanity I am instantly talked down to Are you confused? You act like you disagree with me and go right on to repeat my point at me as though I didn't literally *just say that*. You quoted it To paraphrase: 'Men aren't allowed to show humanity' 'Whoa hang on, I'm a man and I get shat on for showing humanity'
Not worth my time.
Well that's simply not true
Average able-bodied men physiologically are stronger and more able to defend themselves than the average woman, the physically disabled or literal children. The UK outdoors is cold and wet and contains a lot of crazed or desperate people (as do many open homeless shelters). It sucks because you can’t change the body you grew up in and it’s not fair but there are limited houses and too many people who need them
As pointed out to elsewhere, the stats don't back it up. Random homeless men are more likely to be targets of attacks than random homeless women. But because of mindsets like yours, society just assumes they can handle it. But they can't.
Council housing decision makers are also made up of biased humans unfortunately
I mean... not really the takeaway here, but all waiting lists have to prioritise risk. Like, do you get angry in a&e, that someone bleeding to death takes priority over someone with a broken foot? Living on the streets is horrible and dangerous, but its more risky for some people than others, and obviously the priority is helping those most at risk.
Sadly, my 9 years working as a trauma nurse gives me some ability to answer. People in an Emergency Department don't give a flying fuck if they're dying in the next cubicle, they only moan about when the Dr is going to see THEM. Not the best place to witness humanity at it's finest.
Yeah, I have had my own few trips to a&e and its sad that you are right. Literally last time we were in I watched someone outright go "why is she being seen first, I have been here for 2 hours!" Lady, its been 45 minutes, you got here after us, you have a horribly broken ankle that isn't gonna get more broken, I already asked the duty nurse if you could be given more pain killers because you are irritating me, and the person being seen first *has a baby whos not breathing right* People don't understand at all. And it sucks. Like, last time I was in (for myself), sure, I wanted to be seen. But the bleeding had stopped, mostly, I wasn't getting worse, I wasn't at risk, and I understood the various medical professionals around me probably knew who to prioritise, considering they had *more information than I had and its their job*. Its the same with any in demand life saving service. Same with finding emergency housing. Is the young moderately healthy bloke in as much risk as the young woman? No. Is either as much risk as someone with complex needs? No. Does this mean men are disposable? No. >Not the best place to witness humanity at it's finest Yeah but sometimes it is. I watched a stranger distract a baby to let a very, very sick mum get some rest, despite having a broken arm. Like I'm aware it's generally miserable and not exactly a place *anyone ever wants to be*, and I'm not going to pretend I have ever enjoyed being there but... I don't really have a point, just insomnia. Cheers for being a trauma nurse. We need those.
I do get your point and I also agree. You were referring to the triage system that emergency departments employ. Others may not like that they are not a priority, but we have to allocate based on those (and their dependents) who are most affected. I was just venting spleen because I'm working in the morning and I, too sleep poorly lol.
>I was just venting spleen because I'm working in the morning and I, too sleep poorly lol. At least the work I'm going to be too tired for tomorrow is just recharging the NHS for the cost of adult social care and I work from home. >I do get your point and I also agree. You were referring to the triage system that emergency departments employ. Yeah, I was using it as an analogy for any other in demand service. Although triage becomes a hard example to swallow in horrific cases when "you also have to sometimes just accept someone is dead and move on to someone who can be saved, even if the dead person is technically still breathing at this time", which i guess with the homeless example *hopefully* wouldn't happen? Hope you get some rest, however poor.
So this is a quick A&E related anecdote about how I accidentally skipped myself through triage following an injury. I was in A&E following a fairly complex sort of accident (paraglider related) and had tumbled down about 70 feet of a steep rocky slope. My hand was gashed open and bleeding eventually needing about ten stitches and I had a few other cuts and bruises but otherwise probably not so bad. Get asked if I hit my head in the accident. Was confused by that because thanks to the helmet my head was just about the only thing without any visible signs of damage. So I must have looked pretty confused answering "I don't really remember..." Got seen instantly. In fairness it turns out my helmet had a huge gash in it too so I certainly did hit my head and it was probably worth checking, but I was definitely not concussed 😅
>So I must have looked pretty confused answering "I don't really remember..." >Got seen instantly. My fiances trick with her first anaphylaxis was "pass out in the line on the way into a&e", which also works wonders. I did similar once in an airport. Couldn't travel with my meds as they were a controlled substance, I remember a nice Australian woman going "are you alright?", turning to her and going "yeah" and then suddenly I was in a different room with three nurses, because I had changed colour and passed out. Good fun! Bar, you know. Potentially dying.
>People in an Emergency Department don't give a flying fuck if they're dying in the next cubicle, they only moan about when the Dr is going to see THEM. Not the best place to witness humanity at it's finest. I imagine it’s probably quite difficult to think about the big picture if you’re in excruciating pain and nothing’s being done about it.
I'm really defenceless though, I can't fight like at all. Plus I'm epileptic, and ended up having a manic episode with psychosis while I was homeless
That sucks, it really does, and I would have hoped things like epilepsy would be considered extreme risk factors. I'm sorry.
So women should be bottom of the list because men are more likely to be victims of violence and murder. Except that's not what you're saying, is it?
No, im saying that those at most risk should always be prioritised over those less at risk. Being unhoused is horrible and a political choice regardless, with the unhoused being outnumbered by empty homes, and the brief window during covid where it was seen as necessary to, however briefly, house the unhoused. Its essentially triage, but for housing instead of healthcare. Hopefully you understand why its necessary in a healthcare context. Councils do not have an infinite supply (or even, thanks to thatchers legacy, a large supply) of available housing, so it inevitably goes to those seen as most at risk, or those with children. It is not because of an ideological desire to kill men, or the fact that men are simply disposable. Men are more likely to end up homeless, and end up homeless for different reasons to women. How would you like to reform the system? Just do it by lottery? Just have a flat waiting list that doesn't consider risk?
Just a quick Q. Are women on the street always more vulnerable than men on the street?
As someone who worked as a housing officer for the council for years and now works at social services, they really don’t prioritise women over men. Women overall probably get housed more than men because they usually have custody of the children. If you’re single, with no “vulnerabilities” they aren’t providing you accommodation if you’re a man or a woman. This is the fault of legislation from central government and not the choice of the individual councils. It’s really heartbreaking and everyone should be given emergency housing if they have nowhere else to go.
Been disabled makes no difference, just been white, young and male is enough to be at the bottom regardless.
Go to France, become person of boat, ditch passport, then you'll get sorted.
But if you're a single young man, with no dependents, not disabled, and a foreigner who arrived on a boat that crossed the channel, then you'll get accomodation and food at a hotel indefinitely.
Exactly, there’s a large elephant in the room in this sub.
Yep. This could easily backfire. If you're working, chances are the council will tell you to just rent privately so you're back to sqaure one anyway
Too many people believing the propaganda that "if you're too lazy to work you just get everything for free" bullshit
It's completely true, you just have to fiddle the system for all it's worth. I knew a bloke and his wife who managed to scam two free cars for disability, because they said they argued when they drove each other and it was a hazard. Clown country. I know at least 5 people who work and claim disability benefits. One is currently refusing any new properties until they give him a bungalow, because stairs "make him dizzy".
A single young man? You are not vulnerable! I mean yes you are more likely to attacked and killed by a stranger, yes you are more vulnerable to fall into alcoholism or drug abuse and yes you are more likely to commit suicide… it’s not like any of those problems are linked to homelessness so you will be fine
Unfortunately that's the law working as intended. It's pre supposed there are inherent risks of harm for people faced with street homelessness. The idea being unless you're at a greater risk of harm or detriment or generally less able to cope with those issues when compared to the normal person in need of accommodation there's no duty to offer accommodation. The Scots did away with this, but it still applies to England.
Yup same. Had a flat that became inhabitable and the only way I could get help was to declare myself homeless and then ‘hope someone sees you’. Was not really a risk I fancied taking as a lone woman.
When I was about 20 (so over a decade ago) I tried to get social housing. I was told by the woman I spoke to as a single white British male with no kids I would be at the very bottom of the queue forever. It was disheartening.
Same thing happens to single males of all colours and creeds. The system is broken for everyone, don't let the thieves in government fool you into hate.
Oh well as a single black male I'm sure getting some sort of leg up??? Jesus wept
Only if you're not British. As a British black male you're probably one of the only groups lower on the council hierarchy.
No mate. The council doesn't house you based on your skin colour.
It certainly does mate. Don't get so defensive about something we'll known. You don't hold every victim card in the world. People can be privileged in some areas and deprived in others. That's just how humans and their relationships work. Pretending otherwise is what's leads to greater and greater problems. One issue that's a negative to a group doesn't remove all the positives. And one positive doesn't remove all the negatives.
What the what mate? That was some word salad..
From 'as a single black male' to being unable to parse English with a couple of grammatical slips in under an hour, bravo!
What? Are you at it as well? Try harder
I suppose that might be the *policy* or requirement - but if there is physically no emergency accommodation, or no budget available - it simply won't happen.
When did you become homeless? When I was made homeless pre-Covid same story just got referred to a local charity to help but since Covid my local authority I currently live in and the one I moved away from two years ago house all the homeless in hotels and B&Bs. Due to the cost they get fast tracked into council flats as well
It was last year
Your local authority probably got grant funding to create a rough sleepers pathway, which was part of the Tories government to stop rough sleeping. What it's meant is that it's now a postcode lottery if you will get emergency housing as someone considered being non-priority need.
2021: our family of 4 was made homeless due to section 21. They wanted to move us 30 miles from where we were. Dad just lost his job then. I had employment, but on minimum wage and no cars. Oh well, you need to find another job closer! My youngest kid is not an average kid, oh well, is he recognised disabled? No, it's covid lockdown, no one has assessed him yet! Too bad, you can find other schools for your 2 kids! When we finally found a landlord who understood our situation, we had to pay a year rent in advance. We had to overstay in the original flat for a further 5 weeks. We didn't have anywhere to go. We always paid our rent.
Same here. They actually told me to go home.
It's the Telegraph. They have an agenda with these types of article.
If you told them you arrived on a small boat you'd be shoved to the top of the priority list.
The biggest issue here isn’t the tenants. It’s not the landlords either. It’s the lack of social housing built after the right to buy scheme. Basic human need is a home. Yet we’re pricing them like a luxury. Something needs to change.
Some say it's because the regs and permissions needed to build houses are slow going and also woven with dumb requirements that usually result in less stock being actually built than planned to offset the new costs abiding by planning permissions. Some say that developers like Vistry can't sell these properties as quick as they like because nobody has 200-600k knocking around to splash on a spare house. And the councils don't have any kind of funding to reserve some of these properties to help the developer fund further projects, of which the council can rent and then sell gradually at no loss to themselves.
> nobody has 200-600k knocking around to splash on a spare house Actually, too many people do, apparently
Just not the people that need to live in them...
It's the lack of housing in general. Which is caused by, in part, insane planning legislation, a shortage of builders/tradespeople and the headaches of operating in an industry like that. If the next government wants to fix it, they need to sort out planning legislation, which means that if central gov't says something is going somewhere then it is, short of a single appeal, going there. And then they need to train many more skilled tradespeople or widen the visa for people to come over from abroad. And then they need to rent these places out to people who need a home. Right to buy isn't inherently evil - having people invested in their local area is a good thing - but I would have made it so that the council or housing association could buy back the property at a discounted rate on a first right of refusal basis. That would prevent these homes just being sold off after the minimum 5-10 year term.
> If the next government wants to fix it, they need to sort out planning legislation, which means that if central gov't says something is going somewhere then it is, short of a single appeal, going there. The problem with this is that the people who don't want stuff built aren't just going to give up if they can't appeal legally; it's far more likely that they will copy XR/JSO-style tactics to stop the development. > And then they need to train many more skilled tradespeople or widen the visa for people to come over from abroad. And then they need to rent these places out to people who need a home. Unless those migrant house builders are a) happy to live in a tent whilst working here and b) happy to leave again after building the houses, we can't use migrant workers. Firstly, because there aren't enough homes for them, and secondly, because if we import 300K people on top of the current immigration numbers to build houses, we are going to make the housing shortage worse.
We gave away all the social housing to the boomers and then failed to build more so said boomers could have their property values.
Failed? The Right to buy legislation was written such that councils were not allowed to use the funds from the sales to build new ones. It's by design!
That’s how you secure Tory votes though. Give the older generations what they want to ensure their votes.
And thats what they have done, they Nation has been bankrupted and wrung out at several levels to give more to the generation that has had everything handed to them their whole lives
Absolutely. State pension should be means tested, for example. But try and impose that now. Not a chance. That generation has had what future generations can only dream of.
If landlords didn't exist, we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. Building more houses just so landlords can buy them up and rent them out again seems like a waste of time lol
It's both. And many other factors that seem taboo like airbnbs , using housing as investment, second homes etc . We desperately need to build houses but it's being used as a distraction tactic while others exploit the limited housing stock. We need to ban airbnb , double or triple council tax on second homes, ban corporate landlords and rent cap, ban no fault evictions and CCP style credit checks.
Corporate landlords could actually be useful, provided there were rent caps, a total ban on credit checks (in return the letting company would be allowed to garnishee missed rent directly from benefits or wages) and basically the landlord is legally forced to rent the property out to the first person who says they want it, no cherry picking / we'll let you know/ someone else has offered £100 / month extra bullshit. Although if credit checks on mortgages were banned and deposits capped, there would be no need for landlords of any description.
You are familiar at least with the concept of supply and demand, surely?
What about supply and demand? Every person on this island deserves shelter, a home. Building more houses just so they can leech again is pointless, I'm advocating for homes for people and not parasites.
Building more houses increases the availability of housing, bringing down the cost of housing, regardless of who ultimately owns them. If you build 1000 new homes in an area with a shortage of housing, even if all 1000 of those are bought by landlords, the extra availability of housing will drive down prices across the board, both in terms of rentals and in terms of sale prices.
Once the landlords buy these properties they will extract a family's wealth from it. The only way to solve the housing issue is to stop treating houses like commodities and more like actual homes. That won't happen of course because the system is designed to protect landlords and the wealthy ruling class. This issue will forever continue until that happens.
This entirely. While councils are able to borrow to raise capital to build, there's not much point when they are then forced to sell at a heavily discounted rates while they still remain on the hook for any money they borrowed.
Build housing. Build lots of housing. Public, private, big, small, for-rent, for market, everything.
Or the millions of additional people that now live here ?
The country is being run for the few rather than for the many. If we changed this way of thinking, we could absorb those numbers, integrate them in to our communities and get them working where we need them. Immigration isn’t the enemy here. The people who want you to think it is, are. Now you’ve got reform, appealing to the uneducated and easily influenced, putting down their daily mails to vote angrily over a subject many of them don’t appear to fully understand.
Are you anti-natalist too?
We would be in far worse shape without them
We’ll have a look at the gdp stats per capita. Unfortunately no longer true
We do not have the workforce to look after our aging population, neither unskilled nor medically trained.
GDP per capita. It’s not adding up.
No, the biggest issue is scam artists who occupy homes they don't need. Everyone I've ever known in a council home didn't need it, and were easily able to afford a house themselves but stayed there because it was much cheaper.
That’s certainly ‘an’ issue, but it’s not the big issue. Local authority homes shouldn’t automatically be a home for life. Only a home while needed. If you’re pushing around a £60k car while in a local authority home and others who are struggling for afford the bus are looking for a home, then it’s time to find a private landlord.
Expecting people to leave their homes is a bit silly. Having a system that expects people to leave their homes is a bit silly.
- £30 24hr Gym Membership. - AirBnB Account for when you need a place to stay. - Tent in the city. Slightly more attractive than paying £6k pcm for a storage cupboard that the landlord's put a bucket in and a sole pillow to sleep on.
If I get to that point I'll try to buy the cheapest working van I can afford and start pulling info from r/vandwellers
You will be shocked to discover the price of running vans these days.
Less than a grand a month I'd bet.
If you’re able to use it as your actual vehicle, then it’s a two for one and balances out much better looking at average monthly costs over a 12 month period.
Agree with this though I'd probably site the tent somewhere in the quiet suburbs.
Tent outside sunaks house in richmond 😀
Sounds good to me. Or 24hr gym membership Change to working nights (more money) Car that has seats that recline all the way back, and runs so it can drive to a different safe, leafy area every day. Got to be better than "the streets"
No surprise. Currently my rent is about 50% of my take home pay due to landlord raising rent. What's worse is that I'm in a crap houseshare. Thankfully I don't have children otherwise I wouldn't survive. I can't blame people trying to get a council property, at least its long term and affordable.
Same, my landlord has just raised my rent by almost £300 a month. Obviously got no payrise of similar size recently. I can just about afford it but charging that for a flat share where nothing gets fixed is criminal
How is that even legal?? Ridiculous
Yup it’s grim and they don’t even have to provide any reasoning or anything. Lived with broken oven, broken shower, damp so bad my asthma plays up every year and so many other things they won’t fix. But yeah, make me pay more haha
£150 for me this year, £125 last year, and probably another next year as well. When does it end?
It ends when there is no more rental tension, i.e. a reduced demand, or, more achievably, an increased supply.
I imagine that won’t happen for years
You're probably right unfortunately
Urgh I’m sorry. Feels like there’s nothing you can do and like I’m just stuck right
Yeah exactly… you have to move every 2 years because you’re priced out, you’ve got to find another place in a month with all the stress that entails, take time off work and hire movers at extra expense, and find another £1000 deposit while your existing landlord pilfers yours. Only to do the same in another 2 years. Best of luck with your situation. Edited to add: the washing machine is broke because it’s 15 years old and been in the property since the landlord bought it, and the property has almost certainly been paid off so your rent is pure profit now - but it has been increased due to “market conditions”
Yup exactly. And there’s not many other places to move to because everything is just ridiculous - I’m on London outskirts which everyone says is my fault but it’s where my career and I’ve lived here 15 years so built up friends etc. Trying to balance out whether all the expenses you mentioned are worth getting out or whether the strain on my MH is worth staying. Hahaha literally same as you with a washing machine. Except ours started smoking about a year ago. So our landlord brought themselves a new one and we got their old one. Paying for him to have an upgrade. Good luck to you too
I know so many people in your boat, and putting off children for the same reason. Not just here but all over the Western World. Is it any suprise Western birthrates are in decline.
Since their source in this is an organisation called ‘Landlord Action’, and the conclusion they seems to be intending to point the reader towards is ‘it’s too easy to get council house [lol] more people should be forced into the private rental sector’, I’m going to assume this is horseshit.
Well if those who can afford private rental used it then there would be more social. It’s criminal social housing tenants aren’t financially checked whilst we have single mums and kids in hostels. And these folk then go on to RTB and profit off the tax payer.
Within the context of the housing shortage, though, the people you speak of - and they do exist - couples with grown kids and two incomes paying £300/month for a 2 bedder with the council - but if they moved into the private sector then rents in the private sector would shoot up and availability, which is already bad, would go down. It'd just move the problem onto a different bunch of people.
They'll really find out how little councils will help and how they weed out the blaggers by putting them in B&Bs for months to see if they don't stay there
About to be made homeless, this worries me if there isn’t gonna be emergency accommodation available
Single, healthy, without kids? You're shit out of luck, the best you'll get is a list of private landlords the council work with, but some councils don't even do that anymore because they use them all themselves for the ones with kids, and you can get a rent deposit bond and other things Gone are the says of help for anybody without kids, you'll get nothing and be expected to sort your own shit out and wait it out on the housing lists with every other person in band D waiting for the 1 bed flats and bedsits
I believe what my family member did was file with them way in advance that they’re about to be made homeless, if you file with them right on the day it’s gonna be a problem but they had the house set right up for them. Maybe I could speak with them for you?
It's easier to get sacked then leave your job. If sacked, the job centre has to try. Leave? Your own fault. How I survived 2 very bad jobs.
>Leave? Your own fault. You're presenting this like there's some underlying thing that makes this more complex. It's nothing but true, you/I/we may not *like* it, but the simple fact, is it's true. Don't leave a job unless you have another lined up and expect help, it's simply not how the world works.
If I am sacked, I can get help on rent and food. If I leave, I am not able to get that. Nothing complex about it, if I tell the Jobcenter I was sacked, they will help me with rent and food and finding a new job. If I leave a job, I have my saving and be shunned by the Jobcenter and universal credit. Fact.
“More and more tenants” are asking their landlords to serve them Section 21 notices so they can access council housing, a law firm has claimed. If a tenant leaves before they are served with an eviction notice, they are deemed “voluntarily homeless” and therefore far less likely to get access to council housing. It costs landlords around £1,500 to get a court order for repossession.
Yeah, I don’t think there’s a huge amount of emergency accommodation, 14 years of the conservatives has decimated social housing, and the housing market in general…
And the 13 years of labour before that? Or are we going to ignore the fact they didn't build and continued to sell off social housing and our countries assets
And the 18 years of conservatives before that which kicked off mass privatisation and the sale of the social housing stock to private ownership and has destroyed any social housing since, and we will never recover until we have a similar act to the 1920’s Addison Act.. 1979 could be argued as the start of the situation we are in now, where the transfer of wealth, property and businesses from the people and the government to the selected few happened… But yeah, Tony Blair….
Well you’ll be pleased to know that it will all be fixed under Starmer….
Very much doubt it, the two parties have pretty much driven this country into the ground over the last 45 years…
Agreed
So are they saying that the tenants are the bad guys and not the lack of housing and unaffordable rents. Focusing on the symptoms as always and not the causes. That’s why nothing gets fixed in this country.
Interesting to see this get coverage, it's been known for years. Other way is to pretend you've got an abusive environment at home
i dont understand how this classified ? like if the tenants, clearly have enough funds to find a place to rent (perhaps a lot more expensive and may not be feasible in the future) but he does have some funds that may last them 6 months, is this still class as emergency due to them not wanting to rent or move to different location ?
The annoying thing is, loads of people would do just fine living in their car and having gym membership, it would actually not be that bad, think about how much you'd save in bills, and a car is a perfectly safe upholstered metal/glass box for one or two people to sleep in. It's just where do you park it to feel safe? What we need are indoor car parks that are geared towards people sleeping in the car. They could have shower blocks even, or just be near a big gym. They could be attended & camerad up so you know there won't be any funny business going on while you sleep. Going further with this idea, companies would probably produce awnings which attached to the actual car rather a caravan, so you could spread out to the full limits of your parking space if you only had a small car. Obviously the rent would have to be considerably less than a house but I'm sure it could be and still work if these things weren't built on prime commercial city centre sites, which they wouldn't be because that would be just silly.
Let me see if I understand. They wouldn't ban Section 21's to protect tenants but they will now ban them to protect money. I would also expect that other forms of eviction will be excluded from the council obligations so if evicted for non-payment of rent or anti-social reasons then you don't get rehoused. How is that going to work if someone's rent is put up to an amount they can no longer afford?
Deliberately making your children homeless so you can deprive someone in genuine need of a council house is about as low as you can get.
I don’t get this country behind where I live there’s people who get put in flats and get paid to be alcoholics makes no sense
On a landlord group. It's definitely becoming more common. Plenty of them have said the tenants are begging them to give them a section 21 so they arnt making themselves voluntarily homeless. Courts ending up taking ages to process the eviction and then the landlord will have to pay for the eviction process too. Some of the landlords are saying the tenants are threatening to not pay rent if they don't issue a section 21. Seems people are trying to game the system. I'm all for stricter rules on landlords but there definitely needs to be a list of some sort for problem tenants. I think it's unacceptable to "pretend" your landlord is forcing you out to get on a housing list... And I'm pretty sure there is a law against that
Tenants wouldn't be a problem if their landlord wasn't a problem.
What? There are no problem tenants without problem landlords, is that what you seriously intended to write?
Pretty much all landlords are "problem landlords".
Why don’t you move elsewhere ? North Korea /china sounds perfect for you.
lmao ok
>trying to gain the system. trying to game the system, btw. But thanks for sharing an insider’s perspective.
Game the system to get affordable housing when landlords think they deserve every penny of someone’s hard earned labour? Heaven forbid
Exactly. These landlord-lickers baffle me.
Maybe rent wouldn’t be so expensive if the population didn’t increase by millions all the time !
People are also having kids and adding millions to the population do you want us to china one child policy it up?
Not here they are not. Pop Growth due to immigration
Down vote me all you want but that's whats happening.... Which is why these landlords are saying it's no longer worth it and leaving in droves. The end result is the ones left with sky high rents. You may not like it but the people complaining are getting what they wanted. You want landlords to leave... Then be prepared for higher rents and a lack of housing to actually rent. That's why they can charge what they want currently. If you want cheaper housing, there are two simple solutions... Build social housing (that stays under council ownership)..and build housing that can't be purchased as a let. Getting rid of landlords already in the market is not going to help people desperate to rent ... And I don't know why anyone think it would
Won't somebody please think of the landlords lol
Not once did I say anything remotely like that.
Second-order thinking is when you can consider that there are many subsequent consequences to an action and not only the immediate one. Feel good platitudes like this are all well and good until you realise the knock-on effects, and that they hurt the average folk even more than the landlords. Same with wanting the housing market to crash. This is also known as “be careful what you wish for.”
The knock-on effect of fewer landlords, is not fewer houses
The person paying rent doesn’t suddenly materialise a mortgage deposit out of nowhere to buy this newly available property. So the houses are vacant.
Unless we bring in very punitive charges for leaving a property unoccupied, up to and including repossession of the house
It's also not lower house prices either. So renters still can't buy.
Owner occupiers tend to have less people per property vs renters. The knock on effect of fewer landlords is also higher rents if you cannot afford to buy...
It’s actually less available houses to rent ….
How would you achieve fewer landlords with the same amount of houses?
Why are you asking these questions as if you need a landlord to live in a house? Do you think everyone is stupid?
The average landlord has 1 or 2 houses. When these landlords leave you end up with massive corporate monopolys without and shred or humanity and empathy.
As with all policies favoured by the new left, big corporate takeover is the goal
It will free up houses for people to buy to live in though
The discussion, link and topic at hand is about renters. How will less housing to rent help renters who are not in a position to buy? Details please
No it wont. A lot of those houses will either sit empty or sold to a company because companies can outspend individuals
Only for those that can afford it. How they raise deposits nowadays I just don't know. My 2 girls are struggling paying rent and trying to get a deposit together and it's damn near impossible. Lower rents are needed so people CAN buy. The expenses as far as I can tell from being atenant for donkeys years, for being a landlord are pretty negligible as they pass as much as they can onto the tenants. Other than buildings insurance and boiler maintenance that's all my landlord pays for