The global economy is in serious danger

[johnhemming2]

Any number of poor people can remain homeless sleeping on the street without affecting house prices. Folk who don't/can't participate in the market do not influence the price.

I would personally extend the definition of poverty beyond those who have no roof over their heads. I think your definition of being roofless and sleeping on the streets as defining those people who are poor is a definition few people would agree with.

[biffvernon]

Where is the evidence for this?

I did look up the figures a few years ago from various reliable government sources - there may have been some changes recently but I doubt they are significant. The data are all out there if you care to spend some time googling it.

Of course the middle class (or at least the 1%) build McMansions. My comment was about averages - there plenty of inequality! Home size may have been falling but people per home has too. My house (anecdotally) had 14 residents in 1900, now it has two and a bit.

A listed building is so much nicer than one of those bungalows. And they don't seem to be building any more of them.

[biffvernon]

Any number of poor people can remain homeless sleeping on the street without affecting house prices. Folk who don't/can't participate in the market do not influence the price.

I would personally extend the definition of poverty beyond those who have no roof over their heads. I think your definition of being roofless and sleeping on the streets as defining those people who are poor is a definition few people would agree with.

Strawman. I made no definition of poverty, just illustrated one end of the scale!

[raspberry-blower]

Where is the evidence for this?

I did look up the figures a few years ago from various reliable government sources - there may have been some changes recently but I doubt they are significant. The data are all out there if you care to spend some time googling it.

Biff, if you are going to make claims, then the onus is on YOU to provide the link(s) to back your claim up. Not anybody else,

If you cannot substantiate your position then please desist from making spurious unsubstantiated statements

[biffvernon]

Like I said, I did the analysis a while ago and, frankly, I can't be bothered to do it again. You don't have to believe me if you don't want to but if you are really interested you could repeat my study. I think you'll find all the data from here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collectio ... ng-vacants

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov. ... ation.html

https://data.gov.uk/dataset/uk-housing-stock

[johnhemming2]

My comment was about averages

In terms of UK poverty you were not talking about averages.

[AutomaticEarth]

My comment was about averages

In terms of UK poverty you were not talking about averages.

Agree John. Biff Vernon has his own weird views on this. Not sure why, but there you go.......

[kenneal - lagger]

I would agree with Biff that the number of people per household has been going down for quite a number of years officially but I would query whether or not this takes into account the number of illegals living in houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) and immigrant households where the numbers per rented house are often higher than the LA would allow. I would think that given the over 300,000 net immigrants per year for the last few years and the very small number of house completions in recent years the number of people per house must now be rising quite quickly. Not many of those migrants are living on the streets although a small number undoubtedly are.

[biffvernon]

According to the data released last week at https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... r_2015.pdf

Seasonally adjusted house building starts in England are
estimated at 37,080 in the December quarter 2015,

It looks like we are building about 148000 homes this year.

If net immigration is about 300000 per year there would have to be more than two people per home to keep the house numbers keeping pace with immigration. If you are correct, Ken, in your assumption about HMOs it should leave a a few homes to spare.

But yes, housebuilding did slow significantly in the years following the 2008 crisis. (Bizarrely, there's a small development of about a dozen houses near me that were almost completed, with the show house about to open, in 2008. They were abandoned and remain untouched over the following seven years.)

[nexus]

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/second-financi ... es-1546802
Interesting article about the possibility of a new crash and how the Tories seized and defined the narrative last time.

[vtsnowedin]

Seasonally adjusted house building starts in England are
estimated at 37,080 in the December quarter 2015,

It looks like we are building about 148000 homes this year.

[/quote]
Would you not have to deduct homes that are lost due to fires or other causes to get a net gain figure.

[johnhemming2]

... seized and defined the narrative last time.

The problem is that this hypothecates that reality is only dependent upon the narrative and that has no independent existence. The coalitions economic plan in government was quite similar to that Alistair Darling was working on.

In 2015, I went to an event where Nick Pearce, then head of the progressive thinktank IPPR, described austerity as "fiscal realism".

[biffvernon]

Would you not have to deduct homes that are lost due to fires or other causes to get a net gain figure.

I rather fancy that is negligible. We don't even knock down many old buildings in the UK, we tend to repair them.

[kenneal - lagger]

Then there are the homes sold abroad, those sold as second homes, those sold to people currently living with parents and to newly marrieds. If we were to suddenly increase the numbers of immigrants we would have massive numbers of people living in substandard accommodation or on the streets.

When the Uganda Asians arrived in the country they were put up in old barrack blocks at Greenham Common airbase and elsewhere for about a year before they could find homes of their own. Those barrack blocks were bulldozed years ago but I suppose there must be some spare elsewhere as forces numbers are being reduced. There were only a few hundred thousand Uganda Asians while we are talking millions here and that is on top of the over 300,000 net EU migration!

Immigration on that scale will cause massive disruption to our housing supply and it will be the poor and disadvantaged, as usual, who bear the brunt of that disruption.

[biffvernon]

If we were to suddenly increase the numbers of immigrants we would have massive numbers of people living in substandard accommodation or on the streets.

That is terribly true. They might be living in substandard housing like at the Zaatari Camp in Jordon, only probably muddier.

When I visited Za’atari camp, where Syrian refugees have fled by the thousands, I spoke to a woman named Hanan. She said the biggest problem in the camp is the toilets. They are far away from the tents and very dark at night. No woman or girl goes there after nightfall. And in the daytime, the women go in groups for safety. There is no way to lock the door, and they don’t feel safe.

One part of camp has lighting, but it’s only a small part, and the electricity is intermittent. “We need light,” the women told us. “It is too dangerous for us here in the dark.”

The camp is so big that some women have to walk an hour and 15 minutes to reach the area of the camp where there are services — clinics, feeding centers and schools. But services can’t keep pace with the exploding population, so people don’t have access to care or basic supplies.

We talked to Rima who is helping to distribute basic needs like diapers in the camp. She told us how the women help each other, even just by talking together. “This fills a huge need that we have — to share our pain and our strength,” she said. “That’s the support that women give each other here. We have no money, clothes or food to give, but we can give our ear to listen and our shoulder to cry on. I never cry when my children are watching. They have seen enough tears.”

We also talked with some NGO workers who told us that sanitation is a big concern. Because the toilets are so far, many families dig holes by their tents as toilets. In the winter, torrential rain spreads the contents of these toilet pits throughout the camp. Water is easily contaminated. And now that it’s dry, the dust that’s everywhere in the camp carries fecal particles that are also a health hazard, causing respiratory illnesses and other diseases.

Menstrual health and hygiene are also a challenge. Women don’t have access to sanitary napkins and have no appropriate places to change or dispose of their pads.

We did see one happy sight: a group of girls playing soccer and laughing together. “In Syria, we would never have this chance,” they told us. “Girls don’t play soccer at home. Everyone knows it is terrible here, but this is our one good thing.”

Somehow, these women and girls find opportunity in crisis.

Of course we wouldn't want anything like that in England, would we?

Data: http://data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees/se ... ountry=107