STUCK IN THE MIDDLE - HOUSING FAILURE
Yesterday I had a very long talk with a Kirklees resident who is not unique in any way in the situation she finds herself in.
She is in her early 90's, her husband who served in the 8th Army in Africa and Italy died about 20 years ago. Her son lives in London and her sister lives in Manchester. She has no relatives living in Yorkshire. She is living in the family house where she has lived for over 60 years, the house is a three bedroom house with a garden. She used to know all her neighbours who were also bringing up families, everyone looked after each other and the gardens were neat and tidy.
She can no longer look after her garden. Her neighbours have moved out and both the neighbouring properties are new private lets operated by a letting agent, all the gardens are now neglected and are used to dump rubbish. She has seen Police raids on her neighbours, periods where the houses have been gutted and abandoned, there have been disputes, between her neighbours about car parking ( She does not drive and sold their car when her husband died), her washing line has been pulled down as her neighbour now parks his car in front of her house.
Ideally she should be moving to a more suitable property. But as she owns her house she does not qualify for social housing. If she sold her house there is nothing on the market in the private sector that would meet her needs. In the past, not that long ago, she would have been able to move into a Council Bungalow or a Housing Association flat, where not only would she be able to manage the property she would have had neighbours of an age and outlook nearer to her own.
Today the council and Housing Association Waiting lists are getting longer and longer, the Governments reaction has been to force Kirklees to sell the best houses it has, not to use the money to build more houses, but to give the money to the Government who will then give discounts to people in the South to buy their housing association houses, that have then got a good chance of becoming private lets at 5 times the rent the Housing Association were charging.
So a lady who's husband fought in the second world war, who has never claimed any benefit, who paid for their own housing needs is now stuck in house, that though full of family memories is now a burden, she is alone, struggling to make ends meet, her husband was not a Banker, he only worked hard all his life in a job without a massive pension, or annual bonuses. She is stuck in the middle as the Conservative Party continue in the mission so amply demonstrated by Dame Shirley Porter, in bribing people who were lucky enough (or regrettably in some cases clever enough) to be allocated Social Housing when they needed it.
Social Housing Sales is not meeting the aspirations of those in need.
