| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Right to buy | |
| Posted by: | Charlotte Kasner | |
| Date/Time: | 17/04/15 17:33:00 |
| "No one forces anyone to buy or sell for that matter." Rather assumes that choice is the only factor. I don't "choose" not to buy a house, it is, and has always been, totally unaffordable. This did not apply to my older siblings because the percentage of their income that was required for a deposit and subsequent payments was much, much lower than it was during my adult life. Many people who bought properties in the 1960s and 70s when they did cashed in on the over-heated housing market that followed in the 1980s. The demand for social housing was also increased by the people who were conned into right to buy and who subsequently became homeless because they could not afford mortgage repayments. I have no desperate desire to own bricks and mortar; all I require is affordable, secure housing in good condition. In fact, I would rather not have to deal with the hassle of structural repairs. I am not a council tenant, I am a housing association tenant. There is a massive difference. I have no security of tenure and rents have been considerably higher in the housing association sector compared to the council sector, although the gap is now closing. Housing associations are treated as private organisations in many respects, although they provide social housing. The housing association that controlled my home (a tiny flat buy the way not a 3 bedroomed house), was so corrupt that it was eventually forced to sell out to another (better) organisation, although it was touch and go whether the organisation would just be terminated and the properties sold on the open market. There would have been no obligation to provide alternative housing for the tenants had this happened. There is precedent for this in properties along the North Circular (I can no longer remember the full details). Not only did I live in sub-standard accommodation with affected my health, I was at one point continually harrassed by people sent round to the flat to abuse me and, when I complained to the housing association staff, I was verbally threatened by them. I took legal advice from specialist housing lawyers who advised me that, although what was happeneing was completely illegal, I would need to have an alternative housing option to pursue the case as, in their experience, the housing association would just find a way to evict me one way or the other. I therefore had to put up with it and eventually managed to pull a few strings of my own when the property was redevloped in order to be re-housed and to move back in. Somehow that does not feel like a "golden ticket". I agree that by no means does social housing guarantee that the community will be stable nor that it will not necessarily apply to private housing; I was not generalising from the particular. When I moved into Chiswick 35 years ago, it was a genuinely mixed community socially with lots of independent businesses with owners who lived locally. Now it is much more polarised, partly due to the ridiculous housing market. We have seen that the money raised from "right to buy" has not been hypothecated and there is no reason to think that it would be again, or that it would be in any way sufficient to produce enough truly affordable housing. Voids are indeed a problem as is poor maintenance, but why should that lead to the conclusion that properties should thus be sold on the private market? I regard myself as local in that, although I was born in another part of London, I have lived here all my adult life, more than twice as long as my original home. I volunteer locally and have been involved in several community organisations. If my house were sold on the private market to raise money for lots of sub-standard housing for the poor people in Feltham or wherever, I would presumably be expected to re-locate simply because I cannot afford to buy? Of course, we should do something about voids and under-occupation in council housing. We should also tax under-occupiers and company lets where properties may only be occupied a few weeks a year and hypothecate that. |