And in the real world, nobody else but Polish immigrants are forced to live in shared housing?? GET REAL... come to Oxford, Bristol, Bath or Cambridge or London any number of places - you will find that a HUGE population of 20 and 30 somethings is forced to live this infantilised life, and it ain't cheap. I pay ?400 a month for a room. As my sister says to her babyboomer boss who fails to get what is so hard about this (having accrued a lovely detached house through divorce and having never worked a day, and remortgaged to get a BTL mortgage on a starter home so that she has an additional income) - can you imagine home being a place with five bottles of milk in the fridge all with someone's name on it? It's bad enough at work. Thankfully I live with mates and our house is more sociable than that, but some - indeed the majority are truly awful. So please don't generalise and say that only lowly Polish immigrants are forced to live in such conditions. What I want to know is why are folk who are given council houses, given a WHOLE house, make em share I say.Bozzio wrote:The Polish guys have little overheads, often living in shared houses which means they can work for less.
I threw my fears to the wind
Moderator: Peak Moderation
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Miss Madam
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Shin: device for finding furniture in the dark
Indeed, I'm still trying to get my head around this. Up until a few months ago I knew virtually nothing of how genuinely poor people lived in this country. I'm talking the long term unemployed, the young uneducated with no family, unemployed single mothers etc.Miss Madam wrote:What I want to know is why are folk who are given council houses, given a WHOLE house, make em share I say.
But I'm learning fast and it doesn't make much sense to me. How come 5 educated 20-somethings with "good" although not well paid jobs end up paying through the nose for a room in a grotty house when an illiterate, uneducated 18 year old single mother who's never worked a day (either in school or employment) gets essentially gifted a house.
I don?t have any better proposal than the current system... except maybe has Cat says to fill council housing to the same occupancy level as shared private rental accommodation.
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biffvernon
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emordnilap
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There was a uncomfortable fact some years ago that one of Michael Eisner's (Disney) employees would have to work about 400 years to earn what he was given (note, not 'earned') in an hour. That was probably an optimistic calculation. One year he got $40 million. (But that's back in the days when 40 mill was a lot of money!)
On an annual basis, the workers at Keyhinge are making approximately $250 a year.
Less than one-fifth of Michael Eisner's pay-$100 million-would be enough to quintuple the wages of each of the 1,000 Keyhinge workers-giving them a still inadequate, but at least living wage-and to pay them for 100 years! That would leave Eisner with $465 million for 1997 alone.
This is old news, I know. Things have got worse since then.
On an annual basis, the workers at Keyhinge are making approximately $250 a year.
Less than one-fifth of Michael Eisner's pay-$100 million-would be enough to quintuple the wages of each of the 1,000 Keyhinge workers-giving them a still inadequate, but at least living wage-and to pay them for 100 years! That would leave Eisner with $465 million for 1997 alone.
This is old news, I know. Things have got worse since then.
I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker
I can assure you that I have both feet firmly in the real world. I am currently working on a project with a bunch of Polish guys who are all paying ?50 per week for a room each in a shared house near Bath where I live and work. (I also lived in Oxford a few years ago as well as Brighton, Sheffield, Plymouth, Bradford, Scarborough, Peterborough and a few other places although not all at the same time). But even ?400 per month is OK if you work 6 days a week at ?80-?100 per day. And no, nobody is forcing these people to live like this, they often choose it to make their homes more social places in which to inhabit - just as you say your shared home is. But you are right, this way of living is not exclusive to the Polish. Brighton has a very high level of shared housing stock and I used to live in a flat with people who ranged in age from early 20's to late 70's. Then again, my wife and I pay almost ?1100 a month (interest and endowments) to live in our 4 bed house and could lose it overnight if the mortgage company decided to repossess it so we may have a home but it is still costly and not absolutely ours. We also have three kids to support (our choice of course).Miss Madam wrote:And in the real world, nobody else but Polish immigrants are forced to live in shared housing?? GET REAL... come to Oxford, Bristol, Bath or Cambridge or London any number of places - you will find that a HUGE population of 20 and 30 somethings is forced to live this infantilised life, and it ain't cheap. I pay ?400 a month for a room. As my sister says to her babyboomer boss who fails to get what is so hard about this (having accrued a lovely detached house through divorce and having never worked a day, and remortgaged to get a BTL mortgage on a starter home so that she has an additional income) - can you imagine home being a place with five bottles of milk in the fridge all with someone's name on it? It's bad enough at work. Thankfully I live with mates and our house is more sociable than that, but some - indeed the majority are truly awful. So please don't generalise and say that only lowly Polish immigrants are forced to live in such conditions. What I want to know is why are folk who are given council houses, given a WHOLE house, make em share I say.Bozzio wrote:The Polish guys have little overheads, often living in shared houses which means they can work for less.
As for council houses, I kind of agree with you. I have ongoing contracts with Bristol and Swindon councils and have visited literally hundreds of council homes in the last few years. Many of the families have little regard for the conditions in which they live and we are paying to maintain these homes, thousands of which are falling to pieces due to the lack of care by their occupants (not to mention that the majority of council homes were built on the cheap in the first place). Mind you, it often takes them weeks to get problems like leaks and boiler breakdowns resolved (which is what I do). I visited several people on Christmas eve who had logged their broken boilers with the council 4 weeks previously. They are very much treated like children, so it's no wonder they feel isolated although you'd really not want to live next door to some of the families either. Council house - no thanks although you are just as eligible as anyone to live in a council house if you so wish. I used to work on the Blackbird Leys estate in Oxford near the Rover plant. Perhaps you could request a place over there.
Last edited by Bozzio on 29 Feb 2008, 20:57, edited 1 time in total.
The situation with the long term unemployed and other beneficiaries of welfare is a real problem. The attitude of many of callers to the CPS who had reported crimes was 'well, you're my lawyer, and I want to drop the case'. No concept of the State being the entity bringing charges, and no idea that there was any world out there in which all needs were not provided by the State. These people are going to be a real problem when we have to become increasingly self reliant.
Irrespective of Polish builders, I think that Clv101 and Miss Madam have a point about young professionals paying a significant part of their wages in order to share in rented accommodation. All of that money going to those who have profited from the buy-to-let boom, which in itself has massively distorted house prices. What effect would a major downturn in house prices have - just lots of losers who have paid too much and others with capital taking advantage of a glut of cheap properties that have been taken over by banks? It strikes me that it is going to become increasingly difficult to borrow money to purchase property, so it may only be those with savings who would be able to make offers on the repossessed houses.
One of my friend's dad suggested to him that he took out a mortgage and took over residency of most of his house, leaving a basement flat for him if he wanted to come into town, while he would move out into his summer cottage in the countryside most of the time. I thought that a better arrangement in such a situation would be to pay rent directly to his dad and to purchase a portion of the house for a nominal sum. I recognise that this is a privelidged position to be in, but think that it is an example of the ways in which people will have to become more inventive, and more involved with extended family as house owning older generations age and might require additional income, and younger people find themselves unable to secure mortgages or fail to maintain payment of installments to their overpriced properties in more expensive parts of the country. The huge imbalance of ownership between the younger generations and older people who have paid off or paid most of their mortgages will have to be addressed. There is of course the factor of house owners who still have a great deal to pay to the bank. This line of thought leads to larger questions such as 'what if mortgage lenders start folding if large numbers of borrowers start failing to make their repayments?' and brings us into major economic questions regarding zero- and negative-growth economies. Anyone got any ideas how this could play out if we benefit from a slow decline, other than it all becoming a chaotic mess?
Irrespective of Polish builders, I think that Clv101 and Miss Madam have a point about young professionals paying a significant part of their wages in order to share in rented accommodation. All of that money going to those who have profited from the buy-to-let boom, which in itself has massively distorted house prices. What effect would a major downturn in house prices have - just lots of losers who have paid too much and others with capital taking advantage of a glut of cheap properties that have been taken over by banks? It strikes me that it is going to become increasingly difficult to borrow money to purchase property, so it may only be those with savings who would be able to make offers on the repossessed houses.
One of my friend's dad suggested to him that he took out a mortgage and took over residency of most of his house, leaving a basement flat for him if he wanted to come into town, while he would move out into his summer cottage in the countryside most of the time. I thought that a better arrangement in such a situation would be to pay rent directly to his dad and to purchase a portion of the house for a nominal sum. I recognise that this is a privelidged position to be in, but think that it is an example of the ways in which people will have to become more inventive, and more involved with extended family as house owning older generations age and might require additional income, and younger people find themselves unable to secure mortgages or fail to maintain payment of installments to their overpriced properties in more expensive parts of the country. The huge imbalance of ownership between the younger generations and older people who have paid off or paid most of their mortgages will have to be addressed. There is of course the factor of house owners who still have a great deal to pay to the bank. This line of thought leads to larger questions such as 'what if mortgage lenders start folding if large numbers of borrowers start failing to make their repayments?' and brings us into major economic questions regarding zero- and negative-growth economies. Anyone got any ideas how this could play out if we benefit from a slow decline, other than it all becoming a chaotic mess?
I've been house hunting today. I want a small house with a big garden, and they don't seem to exist. I'm thinking of buying a bigger house than I need that's suitable for dividing, so I can let part of it or have a couple of lodgers. Don't know if that makes me an evil capitalist or a nice guy who's offering a nice home to someone. Of course they will have to look after the garden and chickens while I go travelling, but they'll get free food in exchange! It's crazy that there are all those big houses around that are full of crap but hardly any people.
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biffvernon
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biffvernon
- Posts: 18538
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There was a great programme on Radio 4 earlier in the week about three men in a float - a milk float across England, blagging electricity wherever they could 
Listen againIan Vince, Dan Kieran and Prasanth Visweswaran seek an antidote to the modern world's fixation with speed and time as they embark upon a journey from Lowestoft to Land's End in a second-hand milk float.
I walked and hitched all over Europe when I was 18 - no need to give up travel when things get more expensive - just learn to be polite in new languages. I have just started Berlitz Romanian - beautiful and very much like French and Italian. Keeping discourse going with our European partners and all.
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biffvernon
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