Times are tough all over

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by jinx

This is what happens here, with generation after generation being dependent on welfare. I didn't realize it was the norm in the UK.

Welfare? I am talking about social housing. All that means is that the landlord (owner) is the local authority instead of a private landlord. Instead of it being run for profit, as a private landlord must, the estate is run to cover its costs, thereby leading to much lower rent and more secure tenancy status.

Setting aside the wealthy rental market, getting a council house was a step in between private rental and home-ownership. It was seen as an affordable and secure option for people who didn't have access to the kind of capital or credit necessary for home ownership (i.e most of the working-class). It wasn't a solution to an underclass problem, or a way of housing the unemployed, it was a solution to the shortage of habitable housing stock in postwar Britain and quickly became a settled institution in British culture. Council housing didn't take on the stigma and connotations it has now until well into the 1980s, maybe even the 90s.