The Battle of social housing is all but lost in North America. One by one the remaining project towers fall, ill-advised ‘socialist’ political tendencies sharing the blame with drug-addicted, crime-riddled underclasses of undeserving people.
Elsewhere in mature democratic societies, there are still signs of life in ‘council housing.’ Indeed, in some places there is active warfare, with believers in social housing going toe to toe with developer-friendly private enterprise schemes and their political bedfellows.
A local report from a local United Kingdom battlefront follows, complete with outsized personalities, angry protests, and even, national news coverage.
The issue, as framed by a quote from one antagonist: “. . . to make all new housing council properties only. Not for sale or unaffordable ‘affordable’ housing, but council-owned properties that the homeless and overcrowded families can live in.”
It seems that faith in social housing is not dead everywhere. But neither is enthusiasm universal for public/private market rate developments that tack on a handful of supposedly ‘affordable’ houses to the project.
Read more in Inside Croydon: Formal complaint filed on Scott as BBC turns out for protest
