Today for the first time I can write about the subject first close to my heart. I was brought up in a council house in the 70s and 80s. I loved that house. Dad was given it after mum died. I for one will always be thankful that it was there , that it was available, and it was ours.
I spent my formative years there with my two sisters and my Big Brother John. My older brother Lloyd had already flown the nest. I know how thankful dad was to be offered that house. I know how important it was to us as a family to have that house, to know that that house was ours no matter what happened. We had security. And for a family like ours there is nothing more important than security.
I have been unable to write about housing because until very recently I was employed directly within housing. I worked for a local housing Association, the biggest one in the area. After nearly 20 years we have now moved our separate ways, it was not a pleasant ending but that is another story.
So now I find myself able to write about housing, and I have strong memories of and attachment to what is to all intents and purposes, good old-fashioned council housing.
We need as a society to stop thinking and stop portraying those in social [ council] housing as something of a lower class. They are not. They are simply a result of modern society. They are where they are because this is the world that we have created. they are not all lazy layabouts, benefit grabbers and never do wells. They are simply what is left from the society that we have all made. Dad had been a free miner a hard-working type, hands like shovels grit and coal dust under his skin. He had worked hard all his life, that is what they did back then. It is fair to say that mum having the temerity to go to a better place at the age of 39, and leaving him with 5 children to bring up, knocked Dad out of his stride somewhat. It took many years for dad to truly come out of himself and get over his loss. He never really got over losing mum, but in the last 20 years of his life I think it is fair to say he had come to terms with what happened to him and to his family.
However, in the 70s and 80s Dad was doing all he could to bring up 5 kids and control the deep grief and depression that would overcome him every so often. he was in no position to work. It was a full-time job he had keeping us kids out of care, keeping us fed, and giving us any sort of hope. I shudder now when I think what others may have thought of Dad. Oh, I know that neighbours and those that that knew him and his situation, had nothing but good things to say about him. In the back of my mind however I often thought was there an element of people, of society, who considered Dad to be a layabout benefit grabber. I hated that thought and I despise people who automatically assume that of people in council housing.
At some point, and it may be a direct link to right to buy, Council Housing or Social Housing did not just become unfashionable, it became anathema to the country and to society as a whole. How sad that is, how sad that something that was so good and did such good, something that kept families together and kept them safe could now be almost an embarrassment. I know people who pretended they had mortgages and were buying their own property rather than own up to being Council tenants. Right to buy gave many a leg up onto the property ladder but it also set the path for the world we have today.
That is a world where ownership and mortgages are paramount. Where even the word “affordable” has now been taken away from that first rung of council or social housing and is now attached to part ownership schemes, money off housing or even what is actually , when all said and done private rent. How many of these schemes, designed by various governments actually do what they say on the tin? After all, if a £600 per month mortgage bill seems an impossible dream, for others to aspire to, then £300 mortgage and £200 rent per month for a share of the ownership in a property is an equally distant hope.
Such things are more about the economy than housing, just as right to buy was and for me you should not base the health of your economy on the fundamentals of a decent life. Housing, Health, and Education should not be thing s that can be tinkered with to boost the economy.
Let us have some serious discussions on schemes that allow those that wish to buy their own home to do so and where those needing social affordable “council “housing to live safely , with real security can do so without being bracketed in the way I described earlier. When we achieve this, we will indeed have made a difference to the housing crisis.
As an aside, you could, if you were determined, really help those people who are buying their own home by no longer linking the National Interest rate to the interest rate for mortgages. Put a ceiling of perhaps 4% on mortgage lending. A 4% return on an investment or lending would be good for my Council, why can it not be good enough for banks and building societies? Customers would have more security by knowing the maximum their mortgage might cost instead of fears of the 10 and 15 % rates of the 90s.
I wonder why they have not done that?
Dad (on the right) with his brother Ted at their mine in Christchurch just before Mums death
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