Property value and personal debt: A marriage made in Hell?

[lyra_k]

To me the difference with rental (and I'm talking the social housing market in the UK here) is that my tenancy is very secure, and I have certain rights (to repair, to be rehoused if my home burns down etc) that, as long as I fulfil my obligations to my landlord, mean that I don't have to worry about interest rates.

sorry to jump in again after so many replies, but I just wanted to say that your faith in the government is very touching.

Compare social housing now, to how it was about 25 years ago, and tell me that it won't change for the worse (or disappear altogether) in the next 25 years...I think that's at least as uncertain a bet as buying a home.

 

[ViolentPanda]

sorry to jump in again after so many replies, but I just wanted to say that your faith in the government is very touching.

Not really.

Compare social housing now, to how it was about 25 years ago, and tell me that it won't change for the worse (or disappear altogether) in the next 25 years...I think that's at least as uncertain a bet as buying a home.

I disagree, and for a fairly simple (and to me, obvious) reason.
Social housing, poor though provision is, is a mechanism of social control, it ensures a degree of social stability by removing what would be a very powerful motivator for unrest; homelessness. Imagine social housing did disappear, do you believe that the private sector has (or wants) the capacity to "soak up" the millions of households that would require accomodation, including those whose rent is paid by housing benefit?
I can't see it myself, and the alternative to that would be a seething mass of homeless, with all the concomitant problems.

So, as far as "faith in the government" (who, me? ) is concerned, I have faith that they won't put themselves in a situation where society regresses into some kind of Engelsian nightmare, I "have faith" that they'll stick to the familiar principle of "bread and circuses", giving people just enough to prevent mass unrest.

 

[phildwyer]

Not really.

I disagree, and for a fairly simple (and to me, obvious) reason.
Social housing, poor though provision is, is a mechanism of social control, it ensures a degree of social stability by removing what would be a very powerful motivator for unrest; homelessness. Imagine social housing did disappear, do you believe that the private sector has (or wants) the capacity to "soak up" the millions of households that would require accomodation, including those whose rent is paid by housing benefit?
I can't see it myself, and the alternative to that would be a seething mass of homeless, with all the concomitant problems.

In America we just put the homeless in prison--problem solved. Think it couldn't happen in the UK?

 

[Hawkeye Pearce]

On the welfare state issue a key part of the welfare state reform over the last twenty years has been to tie everyone into the labour market. Particularly sine 1997, Blair's "reforms" of disability benefits, lone parent benefits and unemployment benefits have all been designed to tie people into the market with a scheme of punishments if you don't accept whatever job the benefits office throws at you. The point behind all this is so there is absolutely no chance of escaping market processes. The UK welfare state never had the decommodification aspects that Sweden's did, but for the ruling class any such decommodification that could be provided by the welfare state had to be cut back. Therefore the welfare state has become what is refferred to in academia as "residual", ie it leaves the claimant with enough to survive on (just) but is wholly dependent upon them accepting the first job that is thrown at them.
However there is little support in the political elite (except for some of the loopier fringes of the tories) for outright abolition of the welfare system as this would lead to far more problems than it would cause. How this system will survive when the job market contracts in time of recession though who knows.

 

[ViolentPanda]

In America we just put the homeless in prison--problem solved. Think it couldn't happen in the UK?

I don't think it couldn't happen, I believe it won't happen, partly at least because of the racial element in the US, and partly because the penal dynamic is different here.

 

[treelover]

excellent points, VP (and HP)


hawkeye, could you pm me a more detailed exposition of what you wrote, if poss, SWAN may be able to use it in its campaigning?

www.swansheffield.org.uk

 

[durruti02]

interesting threadbut some qs


how/ does the 'buy to let' frenzy fit in? (at the minute in london there are several massive housing projects that are pure buy to let )

how/ does (housing ) Pathfinder project fit in? .. (the project to knock down severla hundred thousend houses in the north .. to defend house prices apparrently)

and how/ does the olympics fit in? .. (clearly much of the economy is based around the City/Canary Wharf boom .. and the Stratford City project seems key to keep this overheating going a while longer)

 

[lyra_k]

do you believe that the private sector has (or wants) the capacity to "soak up" the millions of households that would require accomodation, including those whose rent is paid by housing benefit?

Do I believe that if the governement were to put up the existing stock of council houses up for sale at bargain prices, to either corporations, small landlords or individuals who would then act as subcontractors and effectively privatise social housing, that there would be sufficient takers to make it work?

Hell yes I do, and I could see something like that happening quite easily, to be honest, unless there is a radical shift in government ideology.

It's not quite as extreme/simplistic as lots of homeless people rioting vs. social housing as it is now.....IMO there is actually a lot that the government could (and IMO will) do to make social housing less secure, less pleasant (not saying it's all pleasant, but in terms of response times for repairs, etc.), and far far less desireable, to push people into either renting privately, or buying, in the not too distant future.

 

[Fez909]

What a depressing/scary thread. I have nothing to add, however...