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Do councils put bad neighbours altogether deliberately in council/social housing?
highland paddy
Posts: 672 Forum Member
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I grew up in a town where three or four streets had the worst reputation for rowdy or bad behaved residents now I return almost thirty years later and nothing has changed. I suppose some of this might be families living there forever but do councils deliberately put all the dafties together and if so how and why? Is it judged on criminal convictions or something?
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People are really just numbers to them, there is no thought behind anything a council does.
I don't think it's intentional by the councils, I just don't think there is anywhere else for them to put people.
Of course, the London boroughs sent the families here which were the ones with problems so they could be someone elses problem. Within months of the place having its first tenants there was graffiti and burnt out cars everywhere.
Its no different today, except that its no longer full of problem families but problem single parents and their feral offspring.
I was raised by a single parent in a council house and ended up graduating from a Russell Group uni so you really can't generalise like that. It's more to do with the quality of parenting than the number of parents.
My mum brought all us up on a council estate (widow) and we have all done good. I know some damn good single mums who do their upmost for their children. I think that 'problem families' does come down to the quality of parenting and I'd include some quite well do do ones within that though they don't live in social housing.
That's why they should be put together away from anyone else. But why waste public money on giving them houses? If they can't look after their property and behave themselves, give them a ruddy tent. On an uninhabited island.
I think the point being made was that what used to be problem "families" with both parents is now problem families with one parent. Not that single parent families are automatically problem families.
Would that be Ashford in Kent?
Hah, that's fascinating. I'd like to know if it was a reliable study, or just some Channel 4 exploit piece on chavs.
I'd love to think we can create places to live that contribute to society as much as housing estates take from them. That good design can enhance our behaviour as social human beings.
As I understand it these days we try to pepper-pot the affordable housing around rather than concentrate the poorer residents in estates; I still believe the reason for anti social behaviour is social inequality and tribalism, exclusion rather than poverty.
It might have been like that one time, but with social housing being reduced so much, it is now down to who bids for where.
I think that now if a problem family causes problem and are evicted they have to go into private accommodation.
In my case the answer is simple - my garden is in shade all day. No one in their right minds would sit there trying to get a sun tan!
But seriously, I don't see why there is a problem in sitting at the front of the house. It's only when the weather is really warm and in my own case as the front of the house faces west it's the obvious place to sit.
We do have about sixty feet of garden between us and the road though.
Forgot to add: in my town the social housing in one street was completely refurbished inside, with new parking spaces and fencing outside so the houses looked like a new built private estate. Sadly, they moved the same old tenants in and within weeks it was as bad as ever. Some people simply don't know how to care for their home or simply don't care about it enough to keep it nice.
No need to guess the outcome usually.
But what is the answer?
It's certainly something I have often heard said. I live in North-West London, but up the road from me is a council estate belonging to a borough in East London. They simply bought up the land when it was released from industrial use and used it for council housing. And it was always said that they sent their worst and most troublesome tenants there. I don't know either way; it is ok now, but that is 30 years on, and because the housing is low-rise, a lot of it was sold off under the right to buy.
And where I have some buy to let properties (retires under a hail of missiles) we have occasionally had to evict a bad tenant with children, so they have to be housed by law by the council - eventually - it is a rough old system, and the council has no responsibility until they have literally been removed by bailiffs. And every time the council houses them in the same place. They will openly tell them that because they have been evicted for long-term non-payment or for serious anti-social behaviour, they will only be offered - let's say Cattleshed Towers. And the implication is that no one sane takes a flat in Cattleshed Towers until it is that or sleeping in a gutter. So I guess Cattleshed Towers is a pretty unpleasant place to bring up your family, full up with people who have been evicted from nicer places.
Probably because they're nosy bastards coupled with the fact they've got nothing going on in their lives so want to be out front to get a first hand view of what's going on in the street. A more up market nosy parker would watch from behind their curtains. Chavvy types are rather more brazen and want to be right out there among the action!
(or it could just be because there's more sun out the front)
Where I live, they take their budgies out and sit with the cage by the front road. I've always found this incredibly strange, and it's not an isolated incident of one family.
They take the sofa out too, one time I saw they had moved their tv onto the lawn.
Only the cat owners.:p
I know this isn't particularly scientific but it's my experience. Admittedly it's some years ago too as I'd imagine all applications would now be made online so I don't know if that has made a difference to the discretion a housing officer can use and I don't even know if there are interviews as such anymore.
Private renters caused us problems too in a previous home. We owned and it was nice when we moved in, with most homes being owned. Over the years they were taken by buy to let landlords. Like you we had Polish residents who I would have happily filled the street compared to the morons who moved in afterwards as the yob chav couple who replaced one family smashed my car window when the girl wouldn't let her boyfriend in, nothing to do with me but my car was nearby when he had a rock in his hand.
The private rents then were amongst the cheapest in the area so they were filled with more and more people who were either single mums or unemployed families. Then the drinking in the front gardens started, the late night parties and so on. Ultimately we sold up just in time - and I know this isn't ethical but the first people to make us an offer were buy to let landlords. You could argue I was contributing to the problem, but we just wanted out.