General Chat

Well one way to stop the Private landlords gaining so much out of the housing shortage is to get the banks to free up some money. It would at least reduce the demand by allowing some couples to buy whose potential mortgage payment would be a lot less than the current rent they are paying a Private landlord.

As for the lower paid workers whose likelihood of buying is probably nil, free up whatever housing stock that is available by asking people to downsize - not forcing them - and offering alternative accommodation. Stop selling social housing. Look carefully at how they allocate. The points system seems very flawed to me where there is little opportunity for a single person or couple to get to the top of a list.

With regards to David Cameron's remarks. He would say that wouldn't he. Wouldn't have expected anything less.

Vera

i think the bedroom tax
which isnt a tax but a benifit cut
should not be enforced till
there is enough social housing built to accomadate
the down sizing public :-(

I think that government should legislate for councils to set a fair rent-able value on private rented properties to stop landlords overcharging

Building new affordable social housing in the currant economic circumstances is more difficult, As I said on the Margaret Thatcher thread Government failed to fix the roof whilst the sun was shining.

we have a census every 10 years to assess the future need of the population which should include housing so the question is why when the financial situation improved did the councils/government do nothing?


Roy

Edit; As for the paying workers more, the minimum wage should be set at the true cost of living plus a persentage, To allow people in work to save whether for holidays to buy their home or for their retirement

How can we get our politicians to do something about the serious shortage of affordable housing and that unless something is done the welfare bill will keep on increasing.

And before anyone starts going on about scroungers, I am not talking about providing houses for those who "deliberately" pursue a life of idleness on benefits paid for by the taxpayer.

I am talking about the people in work who are low paid and work hard and who in their wildest dreams will never get a mortgage unless they win the lottery.

Instead of building houses for these people to rent, we appear to prefer to encourage a private housing to rent market in which many landlords charge rents way in excess of what would be considered a reasonable rent, as a result, the hard working low paid end up having to rely on top-ups from the state just so that they can keep a roof over their head and cover their basic needs.

Outcome - the welfare bill keeps rising, the landlords get richer partly funded by the taxpayer, and the low paid end up needing help as they struggle to make ends meet.

This is false economics, employers need to pay people a decent living wage and people need houses they can afford, so my answer to the Prime Minister's conundrum below is - there is a human impact on hard working low paid families from your current policies and the solution is better wages & the building of more social housing.

The Prime Minister on ITV today:-

The Prime Minister vigorously defended his so-called controversial 'bedroom tax' in an interview with ITV News. Asked if it was fair that children "bear the brunt of this kind of policy", he said:

"There is a human impact on the entire country that we currently spend £23 billion a year on housing benefit, that is more, to put it in context than we spend on the entire transport and home office budgets.