General Discussion

saw this today. Might using up empty housing stock help the housing problem?

more than 610,000 empty properties in England - some 200,000 of which have been empty for six months or more. Property can end up empty for all sorts of reasons. A house may have been left by someone who moved abroad. It may be owned by an elderly person who has moved into a different type of accommodation and doesn't want to think about selling. Alternatively, it may have been inherited by someone who is struggling to let the property go.

Whatever the reason, it's clearly crazy to have property standing empty, when people are so desperate for places to live, and rents and house prices are running so impossibly out of hand.

What is the actual problem of 'people are so desperate for places to live'? If there are so many people currently without a place to live why do we not see more people sleeping rough!

They are obviously living somewhere. The issue seems to be there is a certain number of people who cannot afford to rent/buy their own home and are currently in unsuitable accomodation that does not meet the lifestyle they would like, but is outside their current income/budget.

This has given the government the excuse to allow developers to build large housing estates under the auspices of providing mass housing for those in need of more suitable accomodation for their lifestyle aspirations. The developer's are happy with this because it allows them to ride roughshot over planning departments who would, under normal circumstance, not allow these blots on the landscape to be built. As the developments take shape the developer's do everything in their powers to reduce, if not eliminate, the number of homes they agreed to set aside for the housing associations, etc.

As to placing people into empty homes, why not let the government complusory purchase disused industrial estates that cover the country and turn them into mass housing for those unable to rent/buy their own homes.

In my own experiences properties that have been used to house those who cannot afford a property themselves invariably are subjected to less than favourable wear and tear.

Would you leave the keys in your car for anyone to use just because they can't/won't buy their own car?

I think there's a bit of a difference between someone wanting to do something but not being financially able to do so and someone being able to financially do something but choosing not to do so.

And this government is most definitely not on the side of those who are unable to afford to buy a home of their own. 

This government is 'into' home ownership BIG TIME. And if that means building lots of new houses then that is what will happen. But the vast majority of those houses will be for open market purchase(although of course that does not mean that the owner will necessarily live there - private sector landlords/buy to let and all that). What there won't be, will be new affordable/social rental homes (or at least not that many as will make any difference). 

This government does not like the concept of social housing AT ALL.

Private ownership and private rental is what this government is all about.  

The council house scheme which started around the 1920's had the right focus on producing quality homes for those in need, but the high values of the day were eroded into non existence as the decades went buy.

I agree with Lynne that the government is purely focused on private home ownership. They want the revenue, but not any associated costs/responsibilities that they have to cover.

As long as we have a system of goverment that is run by those that have vested interests in major corporations, financial institutions and filling their own pockets with tax payer's hard earned money nothing will change.