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@jen_jen wrote:
@anc wrote:
@jen_jen wrote:
It doesn’t need explanation, but my response was a serious one.
Great for those who have parents who are in a position to help, but what about those that haven’t?
Well the parents ain’t alive then! Even if I had nothing I would give love!
My parents weren’t in a position to help me, my siblings aren’t in a position to help their children. Love doesn’t get your children onto the property ladder or into their own accomodation.
You are being pedantic, and you know it! With love, comes a roof over your head, whether it is in your name or not, it will be, when you die!! :roll:
Best make that obvious methinks – when your children die and if your house is in your name, it will obviously, become theirs! Up to them how they fight about it! 8)
Not pedantic at all, it’s a genuine question.
With love comes a roof over your head? For how many of your children? For how long? Should they really have to wait until you die to be able to get their own roof over their heads?
Many parents are not able to help their children get onto the property ladder either when they’re alive or after their death. No surprise then that the demand for social housing is on the increase, meanwhile the level of social housing available remains static leaving private landlords to pretty much charge what they want for rents, often far more than the ordinary person can afford.
Why are we so obsessed with owning our own property? My parents generation didn’t expect to own their own home and there was no stigma or sense of failure associated with having a council house or renting privately. Neither did I expect to own my own home until I was in my early 20s and Maggie Thatcher and co started telling us all that we had the right to own…to my mind that’s when it all started going downhill in the housing sector. People were actively encouraged to buy their council houses, being given loans from the council with repayments that were less than their rents…you’d have been a fool not to have taken it up wouldn’t you? So council housing was sold off and no new houses available to replace it, and everyone who didn’t own their own house being made to feel a failure, a second class citizen. The pressure is on to get onto that property ladder, to own your own home…why? What’s so bad about renting?
A friend of mine is soon to be a proud grandmother. Her son is 20, he lives (or lived) at home with his mum, his girlfriend at home with her mum. They have been saving a deposit for a house but on their low wages it’s a struggle. The pregancy wasn’t planned, they had been taking precautions but accidents will happen. Neither of them want her to have an abortion; it’s sooner than they would have wanted but they’re going ahead with the pregnancy. She was horrified to hear that the girlfriend had moved into a B&B and immediately offered to have her live with them…until the mother called and told her that she was only following the advice of the local housing authority. Apparently putting your name on the housing list isn’t enough if you live at home with your parents, you are considered low priority for housing even after you’ve had the baby. Her son has now moved into the B&B with his girlfriend as this will increase their chances of getting housing. Both parents are supportive, helping with washing, providing meals and so on. They can’t give them money to get them on the housing ladder, they haven’t got the space to have them at home indefinitely especially once the baby is born, so the only way they can help them get a roof over their heads is by making them homeless…meantime my friend’s heart aches at the thought of her son and his girlfriend in a B&B, knowing that at best they’ll get a bedsit and there’s nothing she can do about it.
There’s no shortage of love there, just a shortage of money, not unusual in the current climate.
Jen,
I like your post. You highlight a really important question.Council housing did have a stigma attached to it by many, but you could hold your head up – I feel no shame for having been brought up in a council house.
But when Thatcher sold off all that housing stock, nothing replaced it. The council housing estates had problem families drafter in quite often, and some of them coulod rule by terror.
The problem now about living in rental accomodation is the old one – the swine of a buy-to-let landlord who charges you high rent. All the money you pay for the house goes into the landlord’s pocket.If you own your own house, the money you pay for your mortgage goes into the house and – if you’re lucky – you’ll see it at the end. Your kids may not see it if you grow old because some swine of an OAP home is waiting to charge you a huge amount of money for each baked bean on the plate, and more often than not you get pushed round and kicked quite literally if you don’t jump.
Time for a new wave of builkding inexpensive council houses???? That has diffiiculties of its own in the present economic climate., but it’s a good idea
There approx 900,000 empty properties in the UK. Just sitting there doing nothing except decaying even further.
That is disgusting. Why isn’t this government looking at making them habitable?
@panda12 wrote:
There approx 900,000 empty properties in the UK. Just sitting there doing nothing except decaying even further.
That is disgusting. Why isn’t this government looking at making them habitable?
Sounds obvious and easy doesn’t it? However many of the empty properties are privately owned. There is a lengthy process involved in the government (via local councils) taking ownership of such properties, then there’s the money required to either improve them or demolish and rebuild.
Unfortunately there isn’t a magic wand available right now.
Now onto teenage pregancies…they’re on the rise right?
All these chavvie young girls getting pregnant and not getting married just so they can get a house right?The latest official figures that I can track down are from 2009.
In 2009 in England and Wales:
38259 conceptions to women under 18, a decline of 7.5% on the previous year. 48.8% of those conceptions led to a legal abortion. So there were 19589 babies born to teenage mothers in 2009.
Of those conceptions, 7,158 were to girls under 16, a decline of 5.6% on the previous year.Between 1998-2008 the conception rate reduced by 13.3% in under 18s.
Yes the figures are still too high, but far from spiralling out of control as the media would have us believe. It will be interesting to see the figures for 2010/11 when they become available
There are plenty of houses out there like panda said and its not even a case of making them habitable to use as social housing, many many youngsters could afford to buy if they wanted to if they could geta mortgage but the mortgages where in my day you could get 95 sometimes 100% nowadays they often need 75% deposits . Its nigh on impossible for youngsters to save that kind of money.i know there is afew governments schemes to help, but it isnt enough. Although i have nothing against social housing whatsoever, if people are helped and encouraged to buy their own homes they will also be encouraged to go out there and work to pay for them. Too many people for to long have been better off not working, and far better off on the social,(im talking the latter 20 years) that needs to change. And yes i know there are millions unemployed and not the jobs to go around and its catch 22 but we do have to start making some drastic moves, and encouraging people to buy their own properties and making working worthwhile will only be a step in the right direction. Even people starting up their own very small businesses, which are relatively heavily suppported by the government in different ways right now, will start things off.
But yes for those that have no choice , single mothers who can’t work and the likes social housing is indeed very important too. But the more that get out and buy there own the more social housing will be available rather than keep building low cost housing while as panda said so many lay empty and derelict and decaying.
But i do agree with jen jen too buying isnt essential and renting is absolutely fine but preferably not at the cost to the government but people renting at a reasonable price and working to pay their rents.
I know its a little idealistic and there are pockets around the country heavily outnumbered with people for the amount of employment but we need to make moves and someone some pocket of people somewhere are never going to fit in with the grand plan but drastic action needs taking.
And scept yes i agree the maufacturing has been going down since the 80’s but it is getting worse, so is, as i said engineering and farming, two heavily burdened right now examples.@jen_jen wrote:
Now onto teenage pregancies…they’re on the rise right?
All these chavvie young girls getting pregnant and not getting married just so they can get a house right?The latest official figures that I can track down are from 2009.
In 2009 in England and Wales:
38259 conceptions to women under 18, a decline of 7.5% on the previous year. 48.8% of those conceptions led to a legal abortion. So there were 19589 babies born to teenage mothers in 2009.
Of those conceptions, 7,158 were to girls under 16, a decline of 5.6% on the previous year.Between 1998-2008 the conception rate reduced by 13.3% in under 18s.
Yes the figures are still too high, but far from spiralling out of control as the media would have us believe. It will be interesting to see the figures for 2010/11 when they become available
I honestly think the way things are going with the eceonomy and people coming back to a kind of reality and realising that the last 10 maybe 20 years have been a false comfort, and things must and will change, though probably in our lifetimes it will seem a struggle, eventually it will be for the better.
@jen_jen wrote:
@panda12 wrote:
There approx 900,000 empty properties in the UK. Just sitting there doing nothing except decaying even further.
That is disgusting. Why isn’t this government looking at making them habitable?
Sounds obvious and easy doesn’t it? However many of the empty properties are privately owned. There is a lengthy process involved in the government (via local councils) taking ownership of such properties, then there’s the money required to either improve them or demolish and rebuild.
Unfortunately there isn’t a magic wand available right now.
There’s a charity that’s in place to tackle this http://www.emptyhomes.com/
It’s the government that’s dragging it’s heels.
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