So I know in London any new housing development has to allocate part of the properties for shared ownership or social housing,
To be able to get planning approval.
Seems very reasonable because property developers make a lot of money selling luxury homes. And also in a lot of places the development is made after demolishing "unsightly" high density social housing.
Often with far fewer homes than there were there originally.
The social housing may be in a separate apartment block in a large development or the less prestigious lower floors.
If you pass by a development it's often obvious what the poor door is.
I've seen one where the social housing residents can't come in through the main entrance but instead goes through the utilities entrance, past the bin storage.
The justification I normally hear about it is that the private home owners will pay high service charges for things like concierge, swimming pools, gyms landscaped gardens, etc etc.
But honestly this seems like an excuse. Like people aren't asking for services for free.
The architecture of their home is telling them that they are inferior every time they enter their homes.
I find it hard to imagine the scenario where a developer is presenting their plan to the council and saying: "this is the door for the poor people"
But then again, I can imagine the arguments of "this is how it is always done"
what would you consider natural? living outside in the bush?
in germany, owning property is considered unnatural or rather not the norm unless you are a farmer. it's all about how society develops and what it chooses as their lifestyle.
I see. So, who is going to make your coffee, sweep your streets, drive your buses, collect your trash, teach your children, and cook your meals, once all of the lower wage earners have been excluded from the area? You?
The funny thing is, by state funding cheaper living in expensive areas, you are just giving state subsidies to rich people. You subsidize services for rich people. Without that, they'd have to pay their service workers higher wages, so that they could afford living nearby or commuting. Or do you think rich people would juslt suck it up and do the cleaning themselves? They'd either pay more for services, or move away, which would lower the rents.
> The architecture of their home is telling them that they are inferior every time they enter their homes.
Rather is it telling them that the tax payers are paying for their home. The idea being that (for those without a permanent disability) social housing should not be something you stay in forever, rather only until you have the means to find a place to stay on your own. Is it necessarily bad that people are reminded of that?
It is, but, like council housing, there will be a wait for sheltered housing. In the meantime, it's likely you're already in, or get put in a regular council house.
Additionally, not all conditions require sheltered housing levels of care - they just mean you won't hold down a job.
> Is it necessarily bad that people are reminded of that?
Every time they have visitors, every time they go home, every time they get the post, every time their children see a playground they are not allowed to use [0]?
I agree that is horrible, but I think the mistake here is in mixing social housing into the same apartment block. Where I live social housing is in a dedicated building, typically located next to a public park.
Creating ghettoes by segregating and concentrating people into certain zones or buildings based on class, national origin, or perceived race is bad public policy that has many unwanted bad outcomes.
> based on class, national origin, or perceived race
Well it is you who are mixing “race” into this. I am just reading “people from whatever background that currently do not have the means to get a roof over their head”.
Do you actually think that you're being intelligent by saying this?
In reality immigrants separated into ghettos of affordable housing because they are generally poorer and don't have the means to get a roof over their head.
The very idea of these mixed housing developments is to not have these style of ghettos.
London is a very different city to your typical American city in that there's a lot of mixing of poor and rich areas.
Of course when there's a block of homes just for poor people in a rich area, since they're less likely to vote, the elected officials don't give a damn about them.
I live in fancy expensive luxury housing, next to mine there's even fancier, almost twice as expensive housing.
Is it bad that every time I have visitors, every time I go home, every time I get the post I see the wonderful infinity pools which I'm not allowed to use?
I'm not sure if there's a significant difference between my story and the one in the article.
Sure, I feel a tiny bit jealous every time I look out of the window. But that's just a reminder that I should work harder.
I think there is a difference, and the difference is that the developers of the property appear to have (at least, from my perspective) gone to some effort to actively separate these social housing tenants.
The law requires that a certain amount of this housing is made available for these people who are vulnerable (be it financially or socially or in health) but it seems that the property developers made an active effort to segregate these people from the rest of the residents based entirely on their financial status or ability to support themselves.
Everyday people are “segregated” based on their wealth in some way. What area you can afford to live in, the car you drive, what restaurants you can afford to eat in, which fruits you can afford in the supermarket etc..
What makes housing special? Must social housing necessarily be located in one of the worlds most expensive areas in central London?
Are you criticizing capitalism in general？
I was referring to this specific case. In this housing example, extra infrastructure is being built for the purpose of segregating people. In your examples the segregation emerges less deliberately.
My previous implied question is still unaddressed. I.e. will this kind of segregation actually spur them on in a positive way, or is a negative effect possible (e.g. lowered self esteem, etc.)?
> rather only until you have the means to find a place to stay on your own
That's not been the political attitude of all UK parties. Even Thatcher's government thought life long social housing was acceptable, although they preferred home ownership.
Why must “social housing” be temporary? I have no problem with people living the entire lives in social housing if they do wish, as it’s a good way of distributing the wealth of countries, and the state can provide secure, affordable housing much better than capricious profit-driven landlords.
It's inefficient. Imagine going to the grocery store - you go in and buy what you want.
Now imagine you were taking money from one person and going to the grocery store to buy for a second person. How much do you take? What do you buy? It adds a layer of ignorance to something straightforward.
It's true enough that sometimes that's necessary - what if the person you're buying food for will starve to death if you don't act? - but to my mind it's something you do because you have to and something you stop doing when you can.
Social housing doesn’t have to cater to whims and desires like whether someone wants gold taps. It’s not a question of how many bedrooms a person really desires, it’s like a soup kitchen where there is one dish on offer and that is better than starving in the street.
Social housing is far more efficient than the options of leaving people homeless in the street, or relying on industry to self regulate, or of passing regulations that X% of housing must conform to certain price limits while still being liveable.
So let's say that council housing blocks were demolished and the land sold to a private developer to make profit off building some regenerations scheme with fewer homes but more luxury ones.
The people that lived there before gets their community destroyed through compulsory purchase orders.
And then they get out into a place that is is designed to show them their inferior place in the world.
Their community has been taken over by the rich moving in and they need to leave because they didn't have the ability to buy when prices were low.
All this is reminding them is that they are peasants and if they don't want to be treated like that then they should leave the city because they don't have the means to live there.
To be honest your attitude just makes it seem moral for the poor to attack the rich. Like burn down the luxury development that stole your home and put a label around your neck shouting that you're poor.
And I'm saying that in the living room of my privately owned flat in a housing development that's currently constructing social housing that will have a poor door, at least according to the plans.
Public housing is only 'temporary' if we as a society choose to believe so. There is nothing that makes public housing inherently 'temporary' or undesirable.
Yes it s bad that people are continually reminded that they have no place in society. The chronic unemployed need support not chastisement. The people returning to work after lengthy illness need support not reminders of their place in the pecking order.
The developers have been granted the privilege to profit mightily, and for that they will be required to provide some public good. They already get away with providing a TINY amount of so-called "affordable" housing, which (at least in the USA) is rarely actually affordable. And these deals are often reneged on... somehow with impunity.
In return for providing this tiny proportion of "affordable" units (or sometimes for no legitimate reason at all), developers are often given a free pass on not providing adequate parking, and for vastly increasing traffic congestion... permanently degrading the standard of living for existing residents in the neighborhood.
Is it necessarily bad to remind developers of that?
This is a tough one - the service fees are real, iirc I know of some people who have to pay £700 a month to the development which is more than enough to rent a small place outside of London. So I can see an argument for segregation even if my personal hope would be for better harmonious living.
Though when some people have to buy a place for ~800k and other people get state assistance it's hard to see that working out well in either direction. One party feels like their hard work and effort has been undermined and the other party sees privilege and vast inequality.
I people who are "big" enough to drop that kind of money on a property and be ok living next door to someone in a similar plot who didn't.
But what is the solution? Hard to say, maybe tackle the root cause of wealth inequality - but how. I am neither politician nor economist...
Ah, yes. They may want to talk to people responsible for selling parts of Vancouver olympic village for 2-3 mil per apartment in one building while the adjacent one was allocated to the welfare housing. Even in a presence of Chinese money. See how well it went.
Your account was created 8 months ago, I suggest reading the guidelines, linked at the bottom. Usually it's much older accounts that ask this question... But it's a question that often gets asked so I don't blame you!
This might be going in the wrong direction. To address wealth inequality, shouldn't we instead make it obvious? For example, by publishing tax records.
Poor Doors are arguably a realisation of the cobra effect; It depends if the goals of "affordable housing" are about reducing inequality (like, systemically, not just finding somewhere to live) or not, and if poor doors have an effect on that.
I'm not rich by any measure but I know the kind of people who receive social housing. Not saying they are all problematic but many of them are, and one bad neighbour is enough to make your life hell.
I do, because I live surrounded by social housing blocks. And just last week they were lighting a campfire inside their building. After many years you can't imagine the things I've seen. Maybe it's you who doesn't know the kind of people who receive social housing.
I agree with you, all the neighborhoods with social housing have thrash laying around, more crime (or general unsafe feeling)
I know because I was living in the middle of it all in social housing. The problematic people live there their whole life, making their behavior the standard.
Social housing belongs where the prices are reasonable, i.e. mostly not in central London luxury developments.
We’re talking about the most desirable areas in the world here, trying to force in social housing is just weird.
It’s not like there isn’t a bunch of places within a very reasonable commute where they could put social housing. Fuck, I used to commute from Reading for a while!
There is nowhere in the west where housing is affordable. In the UK you have to go to the Scotish mountains to find houses that are as affordable today as London was in 1990.
Some people believe, instead of having social housing in ££££ areas with long waiting lists, we should have social housing in ££ areas with short waiting lists.
And councils have finite budgets so every £ extra spent paying someone's rent is a £ that isn't spent on supporting and caring for the elderly and the disabled and the mentally ill / funding schools / running buses / maintaining cycle paths and parks and play areas and libraries.
Unfortunately there are a number of disadvantages to this:
1. Making affordable housing a condition of planning permission doesn't cost the council anything, whereas houses built in other councils' areas would have to be paid for.
2. The vast majority of social housing users have jobs and loved ones. If someone has to buy a car to get to work, or can no longer get babysitting from their parents while they work, or moves somewhere with lower wages, such a move makes them poorer.
3. Many of the jobs these people are doing need doing anyway, so they'll have to be replaced - possibly with someone with a longer/more expensive commute. Some people have a certain cynicism about capitalism, and are sceptical as to whether these jobs' wages will rise at all, let alone rise enough to cover a more expensive commute.
4. Regeneration often involves demolishing homes poor people live in. As some minorities are richer than others, regeneration that sends poor people out of a city is also regeneration that sends certain minorities out of the city. Some people feel this has shades of "ethnic cleansing".
It can be argued that luxury homes don't belong in a densely populated city, and they should be moved to a "reasonable location". Low density makes the city a worse place for everyone.
Balderdash - unless you count “being able to work” as a luxury.
Public transport in London is painfully expensive, and if you are earning minimum wage on a part-time contract, a private tenancy that would be affordable to such a person would be well outside of the city, and their commuting costs would be a substantial portion of their pay - and you would need to subsidise them to a greater degree than you would by simply having them live near their place of work.
So, again, I assume you count having a job and a home as a “mountain of privilege”, and not as a fairly universal underpinning of society.
If the rich are willing to pay a premium for the top floors of a building forcing them to share the building with the poor will make them just build their own.
Better yet, have incredibly punitive taxation for this so it becomes even more of a social symbol. Then use that money to improve the lives of people living in the lower floors instead of doing meaningless gestures.
What if the "poor people" become a nuisance? Such articles always frame things in a rosy light, as if the evil rich planners are the only reason people are divided.
What if the poor people are alcoholics, drug dealers, petty thieves, antisocial people? Why should other people be forced to deal with them?
The poor peole (on welfare) are mor likely to be trouble - they are on welfare for a reason.. Rich people pay good money to be shielded from trouble.
Do you have children? Did you get a cheap flat in the poor part of town? Many families pay higher rents, so that their kids have save streets and playgrounds to play in.
In my middle class neighborhood, I am not aware if a rich kid causing trouble. What trouble do you have in mind? Loud parties? Is the rich kid going to steal my kid's iPhones? I am talking about violence, pollution, syringes on playgrounds, stuff like that.
> The poor people (on welfare) are more likely to be trouble - they are on welfare for a reason..
as someone who's family has lived on welfare too, i find that notion insulting.
the reason for people being on welfare most often has nothing to do with people getting in trouble. loosing a job, divorce, natural disasters, illness in the family. there are many reasons someone could need welfare.
i urge you to really meet these people and understand their situation instead of dismissing them like that.
Mixed developments for which a "poor door" makes sense are unnatural because they force different people together. I have enough trouble in a medium apartment building with divergent interests between people owning very similar apartments on different floors (different heating expenses) or on different sides (different trouble with trees and other properties); I cannot imagine a place with different people getting different services.
The solution? Drive moderately rich people out of the city with brutal taxation of luxury homes (according to building types and straightforward measures like residents per total area of the property).
There's a real misunderstanding in this thread of what this "social housing" actually is.
This is not council housing.
This is affordable housing. It's owned by a landlord and then privately rented. The people in it tend not to be the unemployed, because they can't afford it. The rental prices tend to be set higher than the Local Housing Allowance, and so Housing Benefit (or the housing element of Universal Credit) would not cover the whole rent.
The people living in this affordable housing tend to be teachers, nurses, police officers, fire-service personnel, public law solicitors and barristers, small business owners -- the people who help make society work. We need those people, and it benefits us if they live in or near the communities in which they work.
There's also a bit of misunderstanding about the other side of these housing developments -- some of them are luxury developments, but many of them aren't. They're just expensive but normal housing, because London happens to be stupidly fucking expensive.
The real problem is that these people aren’t paid enough to afford “rich” housing which is a problem considering these people make society work.
However forcing “affordable” housing in “rich” areas is the wrong way to deal with it IMO.
Let the market deal with it. These people can switch careers (or not consider such a career in the first place) to something that’s better paid. When the talent pool dries up the salaries for these careers will rise naturally because there’s gonna be no other way to get police officers, nurses, etc.
71 comments
[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 138 ms ] threadSeems very reasonable because property developers make a lot of money selling luxury homes. And also in a lot of places the development is made after demolishing "unsightly" high density social housing.
Often with far fewer homes than there were there originally.
The social housing may be in a separate apartment block in a large development or the less prestigious lower floors.
If you pass by a development it's often obvious what the poor door is.
I've seen one where the social housing residents can't come in through the main entrance but instead goes through the utilities entrance, past the bin storage.
The justification I normally hear about it is that the private home owners will pay high service charges for things like concierge, swimming pools, gyms landscaped gardens, etc etc.
But honestly this seems like an excuse. Like people aren't asking for services for free.
The architecture of their home is telling them that they are inferior every time they enter their homes.
I find it hard to imagine the scenario where a developer is presenting their plan to the council and saying: "this is the door for the poor people"
But then again, I can imagine the arguments of "this is how it is always done"
Well, they don't belong there. They are there because the government has mandated it. It's unnatural, and this is the result.
Desirable things being affordable when you are rich enough or poor enough is “unnatural”.
in germany, owning property is considered unnatural or rather not the norm unless you are a farmer. it's all about how society develops and what it chooses as their lifestyle.
Socialism - reliably fails every time.
Rather is it telling them that the tax payers are paying for their home. The idea being that (for those without a permanent disability) social housing should not be something you stay in forever, rather only until you have the means to find a place to stay on your own. Is it necessarily bad that people are reminded of that?
What if you have a mental or physical disability that precludes you from paid work? (Note that doesn't include charitable work)
Additionally, not all conditions require sheltered housing levels of care - they just mean you won't hold down a job.
Every time they have visitors, every time they go home, every time they get the post, every time their children see a playground they are not allowed to use [0]?
Yes.
[0]: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/mar/25/too-poor-to-p...
Well it is you who are mixing “race” into this. I am just reading “people from whatever background that currently do not have the means to get a roof over their head”.
In reality immigrants separated into ghettos of affordable housing because they are generally poorer and don't have the means to get a roof over their head.
The very idea of these mixed housing developments is to not have these style of ghettos.
London is a very different city to your typical American city in that there's a lot of mixing of poor and rich areas.
Of course when there's a block of homes just for poor people in a rich area, since they're less likely to vote, the elected officials don't give a damn about them.
Like this:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower
Is it bad that every time I have visitors, every time I go home, every time I get the post I see the wonderful infinity pools which I'm not allowed to use?
I'm not sure if there's a significant difference between my story and the one in the article.
Sure, I feel a tiny bit jealous every time I look out of the window. But that's just a reminder that I should work harder.
The law requires that a certain amount of this housing is made available for these people who are vulnerable (be it financially or socially or in health) but it seems that the property developers made an active effort to segregate these people from the rest of the residents based entirely on their financial status or ability to support themselves.
My previous implied question is still unaddressed. I.e. will this kind of segregation actually spur them on in a positive way, or is a negative effect possible (e.g. lowered self esteem, etc.)?
That's not been the political attitude of all UK parties. Even Thatcher's government thought life long social housing was acceptable, although they preferred home ownership.
Now imagine you were taking money from one person and going to the grocery store to buy for a second person. How much do you take? What do you buy? It adds a layer of ignorance to something straightforward.
It's true enough that sometimes that's necessary - what if the person you're buying food for will starve to death if you don't act? - but to my mind it's something you do because you have to and something you stop doing when you can.
Social housing doesn’t have to cater to whims and desires like whether someone wants gold taps. It’s not a question of how many bedrooms a person really desires, it’s like a soup kitchen where there is one dish on offer and that is better than starving in the street.
Social housing is far more efficient than the options of leaving people homeless in the street, or relying on industry to self regulate, or of passing regulations that X% of housing must conform to certain price limits while still being liveable.
The people that lived there before gets their community destroyed through compulsory purchase orders.
And then they get out into a place that is is designed to show them their inferior place in the world.
Their community has been taken over by the rich moving in and they need to leave because they didn't have the ability to buy when prices were low.
All this is reminding them is that they are peasants and if they don't want to be treated like that then they should leave the city because they don't have the means to live there.
To be honest your attitude just makes it seem moral for the poor to attack the rich. Like burn down the luxury development that stole your home and put a label around your neck shouting that you're poor.
And I'm saying that in the living room of my privately owned flat in a housing development that's currently constructing social housing that will have a poor door, at least according to the plans.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_housing_in_Singapore
Public housing is only 'temporary' if we as a society choose to believe so. There is nothing that makes public housing inherently 'temporary' or undesirable.
In return for providing this tiny proportion of "affordable" units (or sometimes for no legitimate reason at all), developers are often given a free pass on not providing adequate parking, and for vastly increasing traffic congestion... permanently degrading the standard of living for existing residents in the neighborhood.
Is it necessarily bad to remind developers of that?
Though when some people have to buy a place for ~800k and other people get state assistance it's hard to see that working out well in either direction. One party feels like their hard work and effort has been undermined and the other party sees privilege and vast inequality.
I people who are "big" enough to drop that kind of money on a property and be ok living next door to someone in a similar plot who didn't.
But what is the solution? Hard to say, maybe tackle the root cause of wealth inequality - but how. I am neither politician nor economist...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect
Poor Doors are arguably a realisation of the cobra effect; It depends if the goals of "affordable housing" are about reducing inequality (like, systemically, not just finding somewhere to live) or not, and if poor doors have an effect on that.
Making social housing more luxurious isn’t solving any real problems.
Tax the luxury developments more and spend that money on social housing in a reasonable location instead.
Society benefits greatly from mixed areas - race, class, etc.
Citation needed. Also If I buy a flat and I have to live with problematic people, how does that benefit me?
We’re talking about the most desirable areas in the world here, trying to force in social housing is just weird.
It’s not like there isn’t a bunch of places within a very reasonable commute where they could put social housing. Fuck, I used to commute from Reading for a while!
It’s almost like they’ve modelled this out before making it policy.
I think we should certainly impose heavier taxes on the luxury developments and the rich living in them.
No spending is avoided here, it’s merely obscured a little.
Taxing the developers for straight cash would at least give the government more control on how it is spend.
And councils have finite budgets so every £ extra spent paying someone's rent is a £ that isn't spent on supporting and caring for the elderly and the disabled and the mentally ill / funding schools / running buses / maintaining cycle paths and parks and play areas and libraries.
Unfortunately there are a number of disadvantages to this:
1. Making affordable housing a condition of planning permission doesn't cost the council anything, whereas houses built in other councils' areas would have to be paid for.
2. The vast majority of social housing users have jobs and loved ones. If someone has to buy a car to get to work, or can no longer get babysitting from their parents while they work, or moves somewhere with lower wages, such a move makes them poorer.
3. Many of the jobs these people are doing need doing anyway, so they'll have to be replaced - possibly with someone with a longer/more expensive commute. Some people have a certain cynicism about capitalism, and are sceptical as to whether these jobs' wages will rise at all, let alone rise enough to cover a more expensive commute.
4. Regeneration often involves demolishing homes poor people live in. As some minorities are richer than others, regeneration that sends poor people out of a city is also regeneration that sends certain minorities out of the city. Some people feel this has shades of "ethnic cleansing".
Where you might have two, four or eight units to a floor for private owners, social tenants are usually in much smaller units, 16 or 24 to a floor.
The fit-out and finish tends to be “cheapest available”, and it shows. The layouts are often unbearably cramped, and windows are often smaller.
Corridors are frequently left in an unfinished state - painted breeze-blocks and exposed utilities in the ceiling.
So, to call this luxurious is to call anything above sleeping on a doorstep luxurious.
It is, by the virtue of the location alone
Complaining about the fit and finish just shows the mountain of privilege you’re standing on.
Public transport in London is painfully expensive, and if you are earning minimum wage on a part-time contract, a private tenancy that would be affordable to such a person would be well outside of the city, and their commuting costs would be a substantial portion of their pay - and you would need to subsidise them to a greater degree than you would by simply having them live near their place of work.
So, again, I assume you count having a job and a home as a “mountain of privilege”, and not as a fairly universal underpinning of society.
If the rich are willing to pay a premium for the top floors of a building forcing them to share the building with the poor will make them just build their own.
Better yet, have incredibly punitive taxation for this so it becomes even more of a social symbol. Then use that money to improve the lives of people living in the lower floors instead of doing meaningless gestures.
What if the poor people are alcoholics, drug dealers, petty thieves, antisocial people? Why should other people be forced to deal with them?
why should i have to put up with that rich neighbors son who thinks he can do whatever he wants because his parents keep bailing him out?
this attitude is clearly discrimination and unfair.
Do you have children? Did you get a cheap flat in the poor part of town? Many families pay higher rents, so that their kids have save streets and playgrounds to play in.
In my middle class neighborhood, I am not aware if a rich kid causing trouble. What trouble do you have in mind? Loud parties? Is the rich kid going to steal my kid's iPhones? I am talking about violence, pollution, syringes on playgrounds, stuff like that.
as someone who's family has lived on welfare too, i find that notion insulting.
the reason for people being on welfare most often has nothing to do with people getting in trouble. loosing a job, divorce, natural disasters, illness in the family. there are many reasons someone could need welfare.
i urge you to really meet these people and understand their situation instead of dismissing them like that.
The things you mentioned can be reasons, but so can mental illness, including drug addiction.
The solution? Drive moderately rich people out of the city with brutal taxation of luxury homes (according to building types and straightforward measures like residents per total area of the property).
This is not council housing.
This is affordable housing. It's owned by a landlord and then privately rented. The people in it tend not to be the unemployed, because they can't afford it. The rental prices tend to be set higher than the Local Housing Allowance, and so Housing Benefit (or the housing element of Universal Credit) would not cover the whole rent.
The people living in this affordable housing tend to be teachers, nurses, police officers, fire-service personnel, public law solicitors and barristers, small business owners -- the people who help make society work. We need those people, and it benefits us if they live in or near the communities in which they work.
There's also a bit of misunderstanding about the other side of these housing developments -- some of them are luxury developments, but many of them aren't. They're just expensive but normal housing, because London happens to be stupidly fucking expensive.
However forcing “affordable” housing in “rich” areas is the wrong way to deal with it IMO.
Let the market deal with it. These people can switch careers (or not consider such a career in the first place) to something that’s better paid. When the talent pool dries up the salaries for these careers will rise naturally because there’s gonna be no other way to get police officers, nurses, etc.
You comments about people switching careers are incoherent.