Jobless people who get back into the employment market could be handed a free house.
They would have to stay in work for a year, under plans proposed by Iain Duncan Smith, who also wants to extend the right to buy to up to 2.5m housing association tenants.
The Work and Pensions Secretary is understood to be pushing both ideas – designed to echo Margaret Thatcher’s right-to-buy policy for council house tenants – for inclusion in the Tory election manifesto.
As well as promoting home ownership and rewarding work, he argues that the radical ‘back to work’ scheme would reduce the housing benefit bill.
Duncan Smith is also said to believe that a new ‘right-to-own’ would attract more ‘C2 voters’ – the working classes who helped deliver Thatcher’s three election victories.
Which may be why the Guardian – on the face of it, unexpectedly, but there again, property is theft – doesn’t like it.
Here’s its report
Comments (11)
This is a clear case of buying votes and is utterly immoral.
YES, help the homeless, and the jobless, to find a decent home, and in good areas; this is right and proper.
BUT to GIVE houses away like this, will not only deplete a diminishing housing stock even further, it’s a slap in the face of those who have been paying rent / mortgages for a very long time, and which they will have to continue to pay.
The houses which are to be gifted can then be sold which will put enormous profits into the pockets of those given these houses.
Better to build lots more social and genuinely affordable housing and to then house the homeless in these and also create competition so that the buy-to-let landlords make their rents fairer.
If I keep working, can I have two houses?
Ha! Only if you work super hard, are willing to pay for everything yourself as well as contribute to the free houses our government will be giving out and continue subsidizing benefits to the right to buy houses that are now in the private domain being rented out to housing benefit tenants for double the original rents…..then YES, yes you can have two houses!
Yes, my response to that headline would of been exactly the same. Why does it take a free house to encourage people to work?
This scheme will become the second biggest joke after the right to buy scheme.
We let ex council properties to current council tenants fairly often and at, at least double the rent that the previous council tenant paid. I can see why you think it makes sense though
Tell me then….someone is on the street or living in a hostel……they don’t want to be there (not all do you know), what would your social programme entail?……remember, it’s my money you’re spending as a taxpayer, so I would want to see a “return”
Housing them, helping them and offering all the support and subsidies they would need to get back on their feet again.
When they are in the position of, as you put it, being able offer a return via taxes and able to rent/buy themselves I would then start the process all over again using the same house, I most certainly would not give it to them for free or offer it to them at an up to 60% discount as some sort of pat on the back.
I think we’re well and truly on the same wavelength now……Like I said earlier the headline and first line “could get a free house” is a bit misleading…..you started your solution with “housing them” and I think that’s where the “free house” idea came from in the article. I think these initiatives are a bit more than “get a job and you can have a free house” but by their nature those who need to get off the streets and back into society will have to have a “free” house initially.
I’ve worked my entire life, no one gave me a house. But all I now need to do is not work and I will get a free one…….looking forward to my break and my nice free semi in a couple of years!
It’s not quite as simple as this, however I can understand your response to a somewhat irresponsible sensational headline. The subsidised or free accommodation policy has worked with massive success in many European cities. Each time it has cut the overall social expenditure spent on these issues, meaning everyone is better off. I wonder if your comment would be different (or if you would bothered to comment) if the headline read;
“Accommodation included in package to encourage people off the streets and back into work and society” ?
This has had some success in the US. Salt Lake City reduced homelessness by simply giving homeless people houses. Gives them a stable place to live which gives them a massive increase in their chances of getting a job and becoming taxpayers rather than burdens.
I disagree with a lot of IDS’s political views, but this is something I can support.
Having said that, this is clearly pre-election pandering. Might be a good idea to make sure there are enough houses to go around before you start giving houses away.