Shipping containers 'used to house homeless children'

www.local10.com/news/florida/miami-beach/with-days-away-from-hurricane-dorian-landlord-kicks-out-elderly-woman-in-miami-beach

With a hurricane approaching Florida, a landlord kicked a 75 year old woman out of her flat in Miami Beach, tossing her belongings out onto the sidewalk and locking the door, leaving her necessary medication inside ..

You can build houses out of almost anything but it costs money and no one is investing in social housing now. It's all about looking for the cheapest short term solution. So generations of children are growing up in worse conditions than before WW1.

Just thought you may like to see how container homes could be made a viable proposition.

Admittedly this one has been done beautifully but if the homes are sited well, not as they seem to have been, in inappropriate areas, it could work.
This one will be feature on Kevin’s programme this week(I think)

Airbnb hasn't helped up here. So many homes no longer available to families due to landlords buying them up for very short term lets.

It is extraordinary that 100 years after the Addison Act and the building of the first council housing we still have such dreadful conditions for children. Nothing can justify this absolute disgrace. Thatcher began it but Blair and Brown failed to rectify things and Cameron & co just made things worse. Families forced out by rent rises. Unscrupulous landlords pocketing huge amounts of housing benefit and a government which watches and oversees the abandonment of standards like room sizes and the age different sexes can share rooms. Investment and building houses would pay dividends as rents were collected and housing benefit was paid to local authorities. Wherever has the 1919 'homes fit for heroes" country gone?

My sympathies, Miepl. It must have been awful. How long were you there?

You’re absolutely right MaizieD that it was a political bribe. I saw so many staunch Labour supporters on the council estate I grew up on, change their voting habits through late 70s/early 80s so that they would benefit from that particular Tory policy!

All to the detriment of their own children now who cannot get on the housing ladder and are paying a small fortune in private rentals. Chickens home to roost?

There should be an outright ban on houses being sold to overseas buyers if they are not going to live in them. Reading some of the above comments I remembered a news item I read several years ago about Bishops Avenue in Hampstead. This is one of the most expensive roads in London.

So, I've had a quick look on line and I've just found a report in the Mirror in April which shows the interiors of some of the houses which have been abandoned. I was appalled at the state of those shown.

Having been housed in temporary accommodation with 2 children aged 13 and 14 - one room, no cooking facilities AT ALL, no bathroom ditto, one single bed, one table with three legs propped against a wall, no chairs, no storage for clothes or anything else...I might have thought a storage container would be a step up

I think we're in agreement, Pantglas

Why though was the money raised not re-invested

Reinvested in what, elfies?

Don't you remember that council houses were sold at astoundingly low prices. This was imposed by the tory government. The councils were not allowed to use the miserable amount of money raised to build more council housing.

Selling off council housing was one of the most appalling policies of the Thatcher era. It was a great big political bribe as well as an ideologically motivated anti state welfare move. All it has done in the long run is to lead to the situation we're in now with minimal social housing available.

Even if the money from selling off council houses had been reinvested it couldn’t possibly have raised enough to build the same number of homes sold.

Most of those sitting tenants had huge discounts which meant that councils only got a third of the value in return in lots of cases. How would that have have been enough to build a brand new house?

Council houses shouldn’t have been sold - they were always intended for people who couldn’t afford to buy their own. Once tenants became more affluent they generally bought a small terraced house or similar thus freeing the council house for a new tenant. The system had worked well for donkeys years until the eighties.

so in reality little has changed , due to the selling off of council houses . Why though was the money raised not re-invested

I was brought up as a toddler, in a Nissan hut , while my mum and dad who'd just left the army had their name down for a council house . They were actually allocated one on my 21st birthday .

In the UK's case, the government is responsible for housing policy. It can provide incentives, via local councils, to build and can clear the way, through legislation, for various initiatives. Ultimately, it's the voters who choose the government.

To begin thinking outside of the box will involve needing to look outside of each troubled community for solutions since the powers that be of that troubled community played no small role in the failure of their specific community-

The powers that be more often than not are themselves corrupt as are those in positions under them- Nepotism is systemic- Funding and tax money skimmed for private gain-

I continue to be very curious about who the "we" is that will address homelessness as well as how to go about it-

No, Callistemon its not working for families (I agree). Four walls and a roof are better than nothing if the alternative is living on the street, but it really is no long term solution.

The powers that be need to think outside the box and think about the long term effect on vulnerable people and children of living in this kind of accommodation. It's no wonder that people turn to quick and seemingly easy ways of earning money, such as prostitution, theft and dealing in illegal drugs. That's how society was in Victorian England. I would have hoped we'd moved on.

Each local authority needs to look at the needs in its area and go from there and needs to be able to raise the money needed.

It's true that there are empty shops and offices (and the spaces above them) which could be converted to residential accommodation. Unfortunately, much of it is now owned be absent speculators, so some heavy handed measures will be needed to force them to sell to local authorities/charities.

The bottom line is, however, that more social housing (council housing) needs to be built. The free market in housing has failed to provide for all those who need it.

Selling off council housing made some sense in some ways, but we're reaping the outcomes now. Councils should have been able to invest the money from selling off council houses into new property.

kazzerb if you mean converting office blocks to homes etc, I put a link earlier in the thread about the problems resulting from at least one development like that.
In theory it should work, shouldn't it, but it is not working for families.

MaizieD, the realities expressed in this thread are concerning- Stressful- Mostly negative- I'm sitting here thinking of the scene in Moonstruck where everyone was in the kitchen, in pensive silence, and the old mad said, "Somebody tell a joke-"

kazzerb, you ask: "Why can't "we" use the vast amount of empty buildings which are in every town in the country to house people ?"

Here in the US there's "we" the people- There's also "we" the government- As well as "we" the corporations because they were granted "personhood"-

"We" the government and "we" the corporations are enmeshed- As a result of their enmeshment, long story short, houses and buildings remain empty- Public (we, the people) funding isn't profitable- If it was, everyone would have a place to live-

We, the people, cannot afford to restore the old buildings or move into those that have been cared for- And we certainly cannot afford the new-ish McMansions-

As a result, there's a glut of homes on the market- Mortgage qualification is painstaking, closings are costly- Add to that the sales tax- Even if one could afford to pay 11k in cash for a home, after closing costs and taxes, the total cost of the home would be somewhere in the area of 16/17k-

Of course! Silly me!
Thank you for replying.

Growstuff, RTB = Right to Buy.

You could be talking about the UK, rosecarmel. Our only advantage is that here is that people don't get hit by enormous health charges. Though that could all change when the tories sell of the NHS

Why can't we use the vast amount of empty buildings which are in every town in the country to house people ? How has this one person in particular ended up living in a container with 4 children ? Where was she previously to living there ? I dread to think !