You may recall the nasty Intergenerational Foundation and its particularly egregious report that claimed the elderly were “hoarding” larger homes – homes they had bought and paid for. At the time, I was spitting blood not least because when people have bought a home, it is theirs to do with as they wish and if they wish to continue living in it following the migration of their progeny, then so be it. The amount of rooms sitting vacant is no one else’s business, because it is not some shared resource as the Marxists over at the IGF seem to think.
Well, today there is another report out.
Encouraging older people to downsize to smaller homes could backfire and worsen the housing shortage for first-time buyers, argues a report.
You’d need a heart of stone not to laugh. I mean, this was obvious to everyone else at the time, but no, the anti-baby boomer, communist scum went ahead anyway with their demands that older people be encouraged to downsize and move out of the family home.
Unfortunately…
The International Longevity Centre report said more should be done to make retirement housing “aspirational.”
Oh, FFS!. When I reach retirement age, I do not want to live in specialised retirement housing, no matter how “aspirational”. I want to live where I feel like it. What is it with these leftists who think that people can be corralled into groups dependent on age, sex, colour, religion et al? We are individuals with individual needs, wants and desires. I certainly have no aspiration to live in a retirement village and never will.
A lack of desirable retirement housing meant older people downsizing might end up chasing the same properties as first-time buyers, it added.
But critics said different generations had different housing priorities.
No, different people have different priorities. We are not a homogenous mass and until these various quangos and fake charities get this, we will continue to have inane reports – doubtless paid for by us – trying to socially engineer us. I will not be socially engineered. I am a man, not a number.
Rather than simply calling for older people to downsize, “we should be incentivising all generations to refrain from under-occupying properties”, urge the authors.
“We” shouldn’t be incentivising anyone to do anything, because it is none of our damned business where other people choose to live.
Of course, the housing shortage wouldn’t be so chronic if it weren’t for my local oldies fiercely protesting and marching against any hint of house building. Nope, they’re quite content to keep prices high and keep the rent rolling in on their investment properties.
Round here, they built a couple of new estates and no one batted an eyelid. It’s not a generational thing, it’s an individual one. NIMBYs aren’t identifiable by age.
I wonder how those same people would react to reports that started:
“Pregnant teenage girls should be incentivised to live in hostels where they can by offered help ….”
or
“Single parents should be incentivised to share housing so that they can support each other and share childminding and other tasks so that they can go out to work…”
I’m betting that there won’t be much support.
Single parents should be incentivised to share housing so that they can support each other and share childminding and other tasks so that they can go out to work
Sounds like mainstream conservative authoritarianism.
They need to keep TF out of older people’s lives. Maybe their own second homes are surplus to requirements.
Okay, I live, by myself in a 2 bed property. That’s my choice, I bought and paid for it (okay, technically I’m still paying but that’ll be done in a couple of years). What right does someone else have to tell me that I’m “under-occupying” my home and should downsize? It’s my money, I work hard for it and I’ll bloody well spend it on what I want, thank you very much. đź‘ż
What right does someone else have to tell me that I’m “under-occupying” my home and should downsize?
Unless they are a council tenant? Of course, if said council tenant wants to buy the tax-payer’s property and a receive huge discount in the bargain, that is apparently A-OK for economic liberals. Nope, no double standards there.
No one has mentioned council tenants, so that is irrelevant.
I mentioned them so clearly someone did.
And it was an irrelevance. Which is why no one mentioned it and I am not going to discuss now.
You think this is bad?
Try this, instead & tremble –
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/children_shealth/10080013/Now-its-a-social-worker-for-every-child-in-Scotland.html
“It was as if the walls of all the houses in Geneva had been turned into glass” …..
Before you tremble, read the “Risk Assessment” or which these lefty Caledonian busybodies are so proud….
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2012/11/7143/9
McBastards. Every last one of ’em!
Control freaks – pure and simple. And doubtless unemployable anywhere else!
FFS indeed. God but did this ever make my blood boil.
Ugh, got to go do some deep breathing now. Or maybe just have a stiff drink!
As if the elderly weren’t demoralized enough already. Let’s guilt them out of their homes now.
Sweet jaysus.
I want to live where I feel like it. What is it with these leftists who think that people can be corralled into groups dependent on age, sex, colour, religion et al? We are individuals with individual needs, wants and desires. I certainly have no aspiration to live in a retirement village and never will
As a lefty I have not the slightest desire to dictate to you where you may live. However I note that is not a consideration that many conservatives would honour, having as little respect for individual rights as you impute to me.
You do like your logical fallacies. This one is a tu quoque.
You do like your logical fallacies
Says the man who imputes beliefs to me that I do not hold.
Sigh… I did nothing of the sort. Strawman.
Do you mean “conservatives” or “Conservatives”?
There’s a world of difference. (And Cameron ain’t either of them!)
Do you mean “conservatives” or “Conservatives”?
Both.
Been in this house since the 70s and am near 80 years old. And need the rooms to store all my junk/ belongings.
So there.
But my house is about half the size of the new houses being put up. Though we do have a garden.
So??