State to help elderly downsize as Government tackles housing crisis

Elderly homeowners will be encouraged to downsize to smaller properties and allow councils to rent their homes to local families under Coalition plans to ease the nation’s housing crisis

Grant Shapps, the housing minister, said councils should offer to help pensioners move to more suitable accommodation to create space for families.

Local authorities would then take over responsibility for maintaining and renting the vacated properties at affordable rates, transferring any profit from the rental income back to the elderly person or their estate. The Government believes the proposal would provide support for the elderly to move without having to sell their homes at a time when there is a shortage of affordable housing for young families.

Research released last year estimated that 25million bedrooms in England were empty, largely because elderly couples do not move out of family homes to smaller properties.

The Radical says this is another hare-brained, sticking plaster scheme thought up by another Slash and  Burn Tory  Minister.

Instead of the Government building homes for young couples and low income families – ie Council accommodation, the Tories want OAP’s to give up their nice home to let the Council manage it, while they move into smaller accommodation.

The Government could create growth and thousands of jobs, by a policy of improving the countries infrastructure including building homes.

So the Council join the pits to become  Estate Agents ?

The Council can't manage the homes they have so they flog them off to Housing Associations and  Private Property firms

So we have a stagnant housing market and a shortage of housing and the elderly should make way ?

How about MP’s giving up second, third and fourth homes ?

How about restricting foreigners buying up half of London or anywhere else.

No foreigner should be allowed to own more than one home that he must live in.

And then there is the size of homes !

The palace could accommodate 100 families and the stately homes turned into flats ?

When my parents were ready to downsize they did so by selling one house and then moving into a smaller one (and immediately extended it.)

Not until they were unable to cope did they move into a Care home flat.

In my case I converted my home to allow me to take a lodger without losing too much privacy.

I could move into the “annexe” myself when I am past it and rent out the main house myself.

So a little box on the hillside for Minister Grant on retirement and my home is my castle!

And it is not always about the size of the accommodation.

What about the location, the garden and the neighbours, friends and relatives.

If the Minister gave assistance to create Granny Annexes on large properties and encouraged families to look after their Aged P’s and UK society to be less “independent” and more family minded then I could agree with him.

In most parts of the world the family unit is sacrosanct but ever since Tebbit told people to get on their bikes and successive governments have failed miserably to recognize that bringing employment to an area, which has lost its industry, keeps the community together and caring for each other.

Many houses are simply not big enough or constructed suitably to accommodate even a medium sized family let alone a "Granny or Grandad"

It’s a dog eat dog world for Minister Grant and its time for governments to understand the importance of an individuals wellbeing and leave old people to make their own decisions in their own time, after all unlike him they have a lifetime experience of it and less of the scatter brained ideas of our “dear” leaders.