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Defend council housing

Davey | 20.03.2010 08:43 | Liverpool | World

do not let your guard down

With the Government forcing a stock transfer or partial to housing assocations or RSL we must remember why the council and central government build them in the first place.
While i would agree some houses are below the standard, the housing act of 2012 being forced upon councils to repair and bring up to date the housing stock, councils are finding it very hard to build new affordable housing.
On the other hand housing assocations are building affordable homes, part owneship or to rent and are getting praise for helping in the communitys while our councils are getting none,it appears through media coverage of such articls the government want rid of the housing stock and go RSL or housing assocations who charge in the region of £15 a week more than your average council house.
Up and down the country housing assocations ,well some have gained control of the market and run down the housing stock to a degree that the only option is to bulldose the estates then sell the land for a new supermarket, homeless and back to the council waiting list,farnbourgh is a fine example how housing assocations work, again not all housing assocations are the same, but most are in it for the money
How can our councils be expected to build new homes when they have to meet the 2012 housing act,and half the government claw back a percentage of the rent revenues, the government should give more money to build to the council , and not support the private sector.
DEFEND COUNCIL HOUSING

Davey

Comments

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bondage by debt

20.03.2010 14:04

They want you to buy in person, or at least a corporation to buy on your behalf and rent to you for profit.

Most houses were built many years ago. The cost of building them has been paid for time and time again. Yet, with privet property, their owners are in more debt than ever. One way or another their owners have released equity, maybe by re-mortgaging or maybe by selling at a profit, leaving prospective owners to seek a bigger mortgage. When someone releases equity, some one else gains equity and a dealer takes a cut. The man who loses equity in his home becomes a slave to the new equity holder.

Mrs Thatchers 'property owning democracy' is voluntarily entering surfdom, in order to fund a life style it can't afford.

Whilst under post WW2 socialism the councils were charged with the task of building and managing houses for social good, under the capitalist influence of the new world order, they are undergoing mission creep. It has to be asked: as an arm of the state, are the councils still fit institutions to hold the equity in the very space we need to exist?






anarchist; a self employed person who works from home


There are no council houses left in Liverpool or anywhere Merseyside now!

22.03.2010 19:55

Defend Council Housing campaign has failed politically to stop mass stock transfers and privatisations, hasn't changed government policy in any way in over twelve years.

A weak, undemocratic and totally inadequate organisation that has manoeuvred constantly in the shadow of their beloved Labour government, deluding council tenants for over a decade that we'd get the holy grail off an errant Labour government of the "four option" of direct investment in council housing. Predictably it just didn't happen.

DCH never organised a single national protest or march through London. It even had a national gathering here in Liverpool, where we'd never won a single NO VOTE against Stock Transfer. When I spoke out at the Liverpool gathering and said let's have a national demonstration or day of action, like a national occupation of council housing offices the best they could offer the gathering of tenant activists was, we are doing action - "lobbying MPs".

Everything predicted by us tenant activists and campaigners in Liverpool about housing privatisation (Stock Transfer) has come true many times over and with major knock on effects, far higher rents increasing annually above inflation, far fewer rights and the most brutal evictions of vulnerable and poor tenants for a rent arrears, often caused by long delays in housing benfit payments by the same council that undemocratically decided to use 'capital receipts' money to fund stock transfer propaganda campaigns here. We even have Cobalt Housing Company Limited in North Liverpool supporting closure of our local public foot path, removing playing equipment, ie swings and roundabouts, from a park in Croxteth and locking it closed.

Pathetic...

Kai Andersen


not the defend council org

22.03.2010 20:32

@Kai Andersen , i asked the defend council housing for help,we recived none,i would agree with a national vote, have you heard of open communitys from liverpool, this company and a raymond coyles etal was involved with communties first, in a partial or full stock transfer,and got payed for doing it, every community that has gone ,i could be wrong has gone to RSL or housing assocations,a ballot of 2005 against the stock transfer in this area of wales, so again C/F and open communitys went a head in 2007 with a very missleading survey to the tennants one being can the council meet the whqs 2012, not many knew what that was.
It would be a great pity if all the council housing went to RSL ,housing assocations,ive lived in one and i can say it was worse than living in alaska in a tent.
Defend council org are rubbish.
Indeed tennants had no choice, a select few i suspect went on a panel and decided for the community,unelected ,undemocratic.

Davey


DCH

22.03.2010 20:36

i only use DCH web address as a point to look at,i dont bother its all crap, but maybe for some a starting point to further the activist in themselfs

Davey