BBC Panorama - The Housing Benefit Millionaire

At one time is was thought better than people living on benefits, would live in Council Homes, but as "Right to Buy" and there has been little or even no council home building for 30 years at one stage, they are very limited.

Housing Associations was said to replace Council Homes, for people in need, which was a change since the end of The Great War, and "Homes for Hero's" scheme , when mem was called up, many was not fit enough to join the armed services, because of bad housing. 

Homes For Heroes and the Addison Act

In late 1918 while the British public was celebrating victory on the battlefield the authorities were already turning their attention to a problem much closer to home; housing the masses.

Even before the First World War slum housing had been an embarrassing issue which governments, entrenched in a Victorian doctrine of self-help, had done little to resolve.

The conflict itself had brought home the scale of the problem when thousands of men who lived in these squalid conditions had been rejected by the Army as they were not fit enough to fight.

To make matters worse there would now be hundreds of thousands of men returning from the horrors of the Western Front who would expect the country to reward them for their heroic efforts.

The Russian Revolution of the previous year was a reminder of what could happen if those in power ignored their plight. As a result one of the first actions of Lloyd George’s government was to promise to provide ‘homes fit for heroes’ and under the Addison Act, his government put in place powers and funding for local authorities to take the lead in the matter.

The inter-war years became a period of experimentation with inventive new forms of building, stark modern styles and thoughtful town planning which would help shape 20th-century housing.

I think the reason for the need of Council Homes should not be forgotten, and also what we have learned after too.

There is a stigma for being a Council Tenant, some people have a opinion that others are getting something for nothing, but with "Right to Buy", then they are more acceptable to they society, even if that bought with a high discount and many Council home sold end up with private landlords?

Now many people who end up on benefits have only private landlords to get homes from, which cost a lot more, and this cost is going on the benefits system, pushing up local demand, and local prices for everyone else.

So it cost more in public money, than Council Homes.

When you look at Council Homes, maybe it easy to see the bad tenants and tar everyone as the same, to stereotype make it easier, maybe I am doing the same with landlords?

Many problems with Council Homes were made not by Tenants, but by new building methods and lack of feedback on quality? 

Outsourcing of maintenance and other services, sometimes many times over, to companies that only aim is profits with cutting costs and hold that strong stigma about Council Tenants getting something for nothing,