A howling wind
It's wild outside today with the wind howling between buildings and shaking the bare treetops; a head down, hold onto your hood day. At least thick cloud and drizzling rain are staving off the cold.
I'm surprised how much more dismal, an already dismal looking town can become in weather like this. On the positive side, the rain is keeping people from being out unnecessarily which means the streets are quieter and strangely more peaceful for me. I used to have a saying, "Rain keeps unnecessary people off the streets", but of course that suggests a slightly different meaning.
BBC1 ran a documentary last night about growing up homeless
The program did a good job of portraying the frustration and sadness of homelessness, but the statistics weren't very clear about the numbers of families who literally sleep rough as opposed to moving between council funded hostels and B&Bs. Certainly the numbers illustrate a huge problem; over 100,000 homeless families in the UK - and 130,000 homeless children. Figures made all the worse when you consider there are 75,000 empty private houses across London alone.
One girl found that by leaving a tin of baked beans on the radiator in the morning, she could treat herself to a warm meal at night. I like that, people being resourceful in the face of adversity. It's easy to forget that B&Bs don't have any cooking facilities.
All this finds a chink in my armour seeing as I part own a property which is being let out, and recently the rent had to go up to pay increasing loan interest. It's certainly isn't a warming feeling this, knowing I contribute to the country's ever deepening housing crisis.
The only way I can manage the costs is to live in a dismal little rented room in a dismal little town which looks all the more dismal when the wind is howling and the rain is drizzling (did I explain that it was a dismal day today?) Actually it's not as bad as it sounds - I rent off JW who I've known for a few years which means I get two rooms for the price of one. He's even older than me and spends his life watching TV so as long as I steer clear of the lounge it almost seems like I have the place to myself. And it's all sheer luxury and decadence compared to living rough in freezing conditions on the promenade in Minehead.
Also on this day five years ago, my father died of cancer. Not an easy memory to struggle with. All together, a day well suited to feeling dismal.
Maybe tomorrow I can find some of that brighter silliness I said I was going to post ...
Posted: November 30, 2006 @ 19:41
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I don't think you have any reason to feel guilty. An increase in rent to cover interest is perfectly reasonable and can't be helped. Interest rates increase, rent increases; has always been thus.
What can be helped is the Council Tax concessions (half price, no less) on second or third properties, which may well be left empty for much of the year.
What can be helped is the Housing Benefit System which can very easily leave a person homeless if they can't come by six months rent from elsewhere while the claim is processed, or if they just don't have the savvy to work with what is a confusing, cumbersome and frequently unjust system.
What could be helped - though it's too late now - is a profound shortage of social housing (having been sold off during the early 80s).
What can also be helped is folks total ignorance about such things, the idea that people must have brought it on themselves if they manage to fall through the net.
So no, no guilt on your part.
Hope you have made it through the anniversary as easily as possible and tomorrow is a sunnier day in every sense. :)
Plus, plus, plus... Affordable housing. They recently built some flats up the road from here. In order to get the contract they had to make a percent percentage "Affordable Housing". This simply means that they had to make a certain percent one or two bedroomed flats with smaller living spaces. And then charge the going rates for a quaint seaside holiday home of those proportions...
This is a bugbear, in case you hadn't noticed. It is not personal; we couldn't afford to buy in any case, but this causes a great disparity in wealth. Pretty soon, most of Whitby will be owned by people who don't live here.
And for all the talk of massive social housing exercises, we seem to be quite slow at moving forward with these schemes.
I'm sure there will always be a few who bring hardship on themselves but when we use this argument to divest ourselves of responsibility, we condemn all those who are homeless or who suffer misfortune through no fault of their own. This doesn't seem an acceptable stance to take.
That's my worry too with so called affordable housing. I wonder who can afford it. Prices are especially bad in coastal resorts in the South West. It's interesting that you mention Whitby too.
I guess one solution would be to built lots of affordable housing in unfashionable grey suburbs, far from rail and road transport links. But then all we do is disadvantage people who are already severely disadvantaged.
In one sense I'm actually slightly more cheered when I read reports like this which indicate we might be hitting a limit in the Buy to Let market. But then I'm not quite sure what the flip side of this will be when these properties are returned to the market as repossession opportunities for property developers.
Goldfish, your comments are very constructive as usual and also cheering. You're shoving and pulling this old gripe ;-) in an upward direction.
I'm sure tomorrow will be better. Thanks :)
Here you have people who have lost their homes, i see kids everday who have never known what a home is. I see them almost everyday on traffic signals wearing the minimal of clothing in a cold winter night and my heart goes out to them.
Here i am with the warmest sweater and still feeling cold, and then there are these kids. I feel guitly.
But of course its not our fault. We are not contributing to anything these children are going through, i hope so.
It is not directly related to any of your housing issues but i guess the guilt factor is the same. You have no reason to feel bad.
Sorry to hear about your father. He is happy wherever he is now, And yes today is a bright, warm and sunny day. It will be inside if not outside :)
It is now brighter here Sketches (inside and out :-))
Thank you for coming by and for your kind words. They are appreciated.
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