The Daily Echo 31 January 2008

Written by Sandra Gidley MP on Wed 30th Jan 2008

Recently there has been understandable consternation about the proposed numbers of new housing allocated to the area. No one wants to see our green fields built upon but there is another dimension to the housing problem and it is one that relatively few people seem to want to talk about.

Hardly a week goes by when at least one person comes along to my surgery to discuss a housing problem. Sometimes it is a young couple, with baby on the way, who are currently living in very cramped circumstances with a set of parents. The local authority will resist housing them until the baby is born and even then I am aware of cases where the parent has effectively been forced to give their offspring notice to quit. They don't want to do this but circumstances force them to.

Then there are hard working young couples who desperately want a home of their own and are told that they have no chance of moving into social housing unless the woman becomes present. They are directed to the private housing market which they simply can not afford.

Increasingly I also see parents, usually fathers, who have divorced and want to see their children occasionally. They are not allowed access to social housing because the other parent, usually the mother, has been allocated a house. The council will refuse to house the second parent because they do not share the bulk of the childcare and they have no statutory duty to house a healthy adult male of working age. Post divorce these fathers often struggle to find an affordable place to live and throw themselves at the mercy of friends and family.

Then there are the people who are "lucky" enough to have secured some sort of social housing but find themselves in substandard conditions or living near very antisocial neighbours. They are housed but may be suffering racial or homophobic abuse. It doesn't feel like home.

Then there are the people who are simply in a cramped home, trying to get something better and waiting patiently to come to the top of the list. They bid each week for properties and are constantly disappointed. They set their hopes on the newly built social housing scheme and, understandably, become bitter and resentful when the housing is allocated to a known problem family from elsewhere in a local authority area.

This is the housing situation in Britain in 2008. The cases mentioned are just a snapshot of the grim reality and the majority of people involved are decent and hard working. In any discussion on future housing provision we would do well to remember these people.

Published with kind permission of the Daily Echo