Have a £30k a year bung to live in ‘scarce’ social housing – Tory RTB policy

If you work in or are interested in social housing your Twitter and other social media timelines are littered with housing associations moaning about the new right to buy. Moan, moan, moan, moan, moan in fact.

YET this clever graphic really caught my eye and for me is a game changer if social landlords wish to get the general public on their side which they need to do.

The detail is there and the graphic and the message needs to be honed as it contains very powerful arguments of the one concept politicians love to ue but hate to be used against them – FAIRNESS.

Why should somebody get a HA flat in London and be paid £30k per year to live there by the government with taxpayer money to live there?  That is simply unfair.

Why should they be given a taxpayer brown paper bag bung of 7 times what they have paid in rent for this scarce national resource called social housing?  That is unfair.

That last point is a thousand times more superficial that the original RTB tenant saying I have lived here for 20 years and paid for this house 3 times over!

The general public is bombarded with simple and incredibly superficial arguments over ‘political fairness’ with regards to housing:

• Is it fair that a benefit scrounger can live in an area the hardworking family can’t afford?
• Is it fair that the benefit scrounger has spare bedrooms in this scarce national resource?
• Is it fair that council tenants can buy their property but the HA tenant cannot?

And many more and all are incredibly superficial arguments yet all are ‘sold’ to the public on this ‘fairness’ concept and in the main the public lap it up. So why don’t housing associations really go to town and target the general public on this issue (and every other social housing issue) and play the government at their own game.

In the above example, a valid example, the person lucky enough to be given this scarce national resource (a convenient tag used to adversely label social housing) today can in June 2018 reap a £90k profit at the taxpayer expense.

Thank you sir for having the ignominy of living with the plebs for 3 years and paying a subsidised rent (yet another pejorative and hypocritical tag) of about one-third what those not as lucky as you do in that area, oh and by the way here’s the best part of £100k for your troubles, dear voter.

If he can do it why can’t I will say the public.  How come he can get £100k off the taxpayer and I can’t?

As I have been saying for a number of years, social landlords need to target the general public for support in the attacks on the social housing model, yet they continue to target government and government only and this government doesn’t want social housing at all and irrespective of the fact the more that are sold the greater the public purse and taxpayer ongoing cost in housing benefit.

Those that work in social housing know this is economic and financial madness yet the public do not – They only see if a council tenant can buy they why can’t I?

The general public is now so acutely aware that even with the bank of Mum and Dad and the bank of Nana and Grandad combined that their children can’t afford to buy and also can’t afford the thoroughly perverse levels of renting privately in London.  Social housing is the ONLY option for this and the next generation and there is no other option.  That is why social landlords if they, for once, actually think, they can utilise the huge political power of the general public who if they think RTB2 is unfair, will pressurise ANY government to stop giving away the only hope their children have for their own place.

How ironic that a family are scrounging shirkers if they think £23k per year is not enough to live on with the overall benefit cap – Get a job you lazy bastards is the Tory message.  Yet the Tory message in RTB2 is have this scarce national resource and we will pay you £30k per year…hmmm!