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?
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...
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.
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/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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)?
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...
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.
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"