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Dante Hicks · 27 May 2007, 18:56

I could bore for England on this subject but essentially :

- There is a massive shortage of affordable, decent homes in most of the country. This particularly applies to council housing, but housing association properties can be thought of in pretty much the same way.

- How you allocate housing is the single hardest part of housing management (if you're dealing with a scenario like the above). You either :
a) Allocate strictly on basis of need (i.e. people assessed with highest need get put first) which means that you will have people waiting for twenty or thirty years and they will still be "queue-jumped" by immigrants/single-mothers/whomever your hate group is.

This applies to the welfare state generally. If you are employed, healthy and single the state will asisst you much less than if you were an unemployed drug addict with nine kids. Is this "fair"?

b) Allocate based on some sort of strict "wait your turn" system, where there's no queue jumping. But then what do you do when a family with six kids arrives in the housing departments office and they've got no-where to go? Let them lie in the street?

c) Some mish-mash of the above. (This is in effect what happens, although needs tends to trump waiting time)

The reason why Miss Hodge's remarks are perhaps unhelpful is because resentment over allocations applies more generally than just immigrants. Who remembers stories about teenage girls getting pregnant so they can "get a council flat"?

From the perspective of the street level bureaucrat - the issue is what practically are you going to do with the limited resources available. Whatever policy we undertake, we need to be sure we can live with the consequences.
- Are we comfortable with families being left street homeless. You do not see (as a rule) homeless children in Britain. This is not an accident, but is a result of various policies we have in place.
- Are we comfortable with vulnerable families of whatever kind being left in piss-poor temporary accomodation for long periods? Are we comfortable with the likely impact this is going to have on their children? Are we building enough prisons to put the likely results?
- Are we comfortable with people being given next to no incentive to be less shit human beings? To see that housing is going to people who have made questionable life choices and their own "good" behaviour is basically ignored.

And so on.

Of course, a much easier option would be to increase the supply of decent housing far more rapidly we than are doing at present. There is not the will to do this though, although I suspect there will be within the next ten years (assuming current trends continue).

Personally, I do not think we should take someone's country of birth into consideration when we are looking into allocating them a home. It is easy to imagine scenarios where this might prove impossible, but I would not say we are there yet.

27 May 2007, 18:56	#5
Dante Hicks Clerk Join Date: Jun 2001 Posts: 13,940	Re: Margaret Hodge I could bore for England on this subject but essentially : - There is a massive shortage of affordable, decent homes in most of the country. This particularly applies to council housing, but housing association properties can be thought of in pretty much the same way. - How you allocate housing is the single hardest part of housing management (if you're dealing with a scenario like the above). You either : a) Allocate strictly on basis of need (i.e. people assessed with highest need get put first) which means that you will have people waiting for twenty or thirty years and they will still be "queue-jumped" by immigrants/single-mothers/whomever your hate group is. This applies to the welfare state generally. If you are employed, healthy and single the state will asisst you much less than if you were an unemployed drug addict with nine kids. Is this "fair"? b) Allocate based on some sort of strict "wait your turn" system, where there's no queue jumping. But then what do you do when a family with six kids arrives in the housing departments office and they've got no-where to go? Let them lie in the street? c) Some mish-mash of the above. (This is in effect what happens, although needs tends to trump waiting time) The reason why Miss Hodge's remarks are perhaps unhelpful is because resentment over allocations applies more generally than just immigrants. Who remembers stories about teenage girls getting pregnant so they can "get a council flat"? From the perspective of the street level bureaucrat - the issue is what practically are you going to do with the limited resources available. Whatever policy we undertake, we need to be sure we can live with the consequences. - Are we comfortable with families being left street homeless. You do not see (as a rule) homeless children in Britain. This is not an accident, but is a result of various policies we have in place. - Are we comfortable with vulnerable families of whatever kind being left in piss-poor temporary accomodation for long periods? Are we comfortable with the likely impact this is going to have on their children? Are we building enough prisons to put the likely results? - Are we comfortable with people being given next to no incentive to be less shit human beings? To see that housing is going to people who have made questionable life choices and their own "good" behaviour is basically ignored. And so on. Of course, a much easier option would be to increase the supply of decent housing far more rapidly we than are doing at present. There is not the will to do this though, although I suspect there will be within the next ten years (assuming current trends continue). Personally, I do not think we should take someone's country of birth into consideration when we are looking into allocating them a home. It is easy to imagine scenarios where this might prove impossible, but I would not say we are there yet.