As the flood of unaffordability sweeps across nations, humanity queues up (not necessarily two by two) for a chance to stay high and dry under social housing shelter.
Not enough shelter to go round? Let’s not get sidetracked by why there isn’t enough. (Lack of money, lack of will, who do they think they are anyway, “survival of the fittest” prescriptions from the happily-surviving fattest, yada yada whatever.)
Let’s for the moment concentrate on who gets waved forward into the undersized ark which, in most countries these days, is all that is available.
First consider the earnest “filtering” system described in an Irish article by a government staffer, a process of running the rules up and down each applicant, so that each person or family has, if not a fair and equal chance, then at least an apparently rational set of reasons about why they are chosen or rejected.
The system is an effort to prepare to triage those who will be rescued by social housing, versus those who will be rejected and forced to sink or swim on their own. Read more in the Dublin InQuirer: Who’s Going To Be First In Line For Affordable Housing Schemes In The City?
And after looking forward, why not glance backwards? What is actually happening next door in the UK? An exasperating and depressing article in The Guardian describes how many social housing managers are behaving. They are presumably the triage of last resort for the most vulnerable persons and families in the population. How are they actually running the rules up and down social applicants to determine who gets aboard the ark, and who doesn’t?
It would seem that they are pressed by a double whammy. Of course there is not enough social housing to go round, if for no other reason than a concerted government effort over decades to sell it off. But social housing mangers are also under the gun to operate social housing as an efficient business, if not profiting from clients, then at least breaking even or minimizing losses. The result are business decisions about who is chosen and who is rejected. They mimic the behaviour of private sector landlords who actively discriminate against the “financially dodgy” circumstances of the most vulnerable.
Applying to climb aboard the UK social housing ark? If you or your family are among the neediest, don’t get your hopes up. Social housing managers will be checking your credit rating, and quite probably acting upon it. Read more in The Guardian: Exclusion Of Poor Tenants Highlights Fatal Flaw In Housing Policy
