You have got to see this

That is both sad and inspiring, Maria. Public housing provision is very insufficient here as well, and house prices and rents have climbed very high in Australia over the last 15 years. This has had the effect of pushing people on lower incomes and also new migrants away from the inner suburbs if the city that have been gentrified, and into the outer or interface suburbs which the government and developers refuse to adequately supply with service and infrastructure provision.

Single mothers were targeted by our last Labor government, when we had a female PM, taking away the extra financial support and stability they received as they were raising children – nominally to encourage more workforce participation . “The Gillard government saved about $700 million over four years by pushing single parents off the pension when their youngest child turned eight and on to the general unemployment benefit. Thousands of single mothers were more than $100 a week worse off after the change took effect at the start of last year.”

The deputy leader of the opposition, a woman called Tania Plibersek, came to our small town last week for afternoon tea and to meet people, and one nice woman I met earlier at a craft/landcare project who was a single mother spoke to the deputy opposition leader about how disappointed she was that Labor moved away from supporting single mothers. I hope Ms Plibersek listened.

That’s inspiring, Maria. In our small city, there is a sudden spate of new construction in the downtown, much of it highrises with apartments or condos above commercial ground floor units. The problem (and it is, in my opinion, a huge problem) is that _all_ the housing being built is luxury housing with one or two bedrooms. No affordable housing for families.

About your own work, no one can do everything, but if everyone did something, things would improve. So I need to believe.

Off topic—how is your puppy-now-dog? Any chance of pictures in the near future?

Maria,

Our governments sold off a lot of our public housing – and we did not have as much as in the UK because homeownership here was more common.

In London it seems very bad, and your developers seem more behind in keeping up with demand than ours. Prince Charles’ Foundation’s recent Housing London report notes that “Despite [UK] government pledges of one-to-one replacements for every unit of social housing sold, only 1,662 council home replacements started in 2012/13 and this year to date, while 10,954 council homes have been sold nationwide” The report also chastises developers for over-servicing the higher end housing market and very much under servicing the dominant mid-to-low housing market.

Another problem the report notes is that the 7 biggest developers are responsible for 40% of new houses – which is too much responsibility for them and they can not keeping up with the need for housing, so a greater diversity of developers would be better.

London has very low density for a major city, so the report suggests more mid rise developments of 5-8 storeys, possible based on the mansion block type, which it says is London’s great architectural legacy and popular in Notting Hill and Mayfair, and so maybe all Londoners would find it pleasant to have mansion blocks all throughout London to live in. The report critiques the big blocky developments of the 1960s (which makes me think of the Jasmine Allen estate in The Bill).

As well as people enjoying the pleasing aesthetics of mansion blocks, they would happily also be more sustainable than either high rises or low rises: “Ecologically, mid-rise housing also has the potential to contribute positively to the future of our city… [it] can be built using more ecologically-friendly, locally-sourced materials, especially in contrast to the glass and steel high- rises… Sustainable water and energy infrastructure systems can also be supported by mid-rise developments… [and] each person uses less energy, and emits less carbon dioxide, than comparable residents in more sprawled out communities.”

Finance is a bit of a problem, but the report says hoarding land can be deincentivised through taxing land hoarders, local authority pension funds can contribute £10 billion , the Mayor can start up his London Housing Bank that he wants, and a mechanism could channel funds from areas with high house prices to subsidise affordable housing in the outer boroughs etc.

The report also says that there is a lot of land owned by the State – so my idea to add would be it could release some of this land to developers but make lots of provisos – such as some social housing, some affordable housing, disabled access, open space etc. The City of Melbourne have used this method a few times quite well – although I am not sure how long their conditions have to be met by the property owners.

Maria, I agree with pretty much everything you’ve said here and I can see why the housing being offered would seem to be in the arse end of nowhere to the people being forced to move it might not feel like that to the people living in Birmingham and Manchester.

This is very interesting – thanks for sharing, Maria.
To my mind, what happens in this case is just one of the many instances of the breaking-down of the welfare state – which we see in various countries across Europe (and -surprisingly- often by (local) governments that have the labour party in power or as a major party in the coalition). And I believe these women are totally right in becoming social activists. Thomas Piketty discusses how more progressive income taxation and a global wealth tax can curb rising inequalities and raise the money to sustain the ‘social state’ (=what others call welfare state), but this is unlikely to going to happen if more citizens become more politically active. And there are various ways for how to be politically active – I consider blogging also one form – and each of us has to find the way that suits their possibilities and character (not everyone is made for ‘direct action’, just as not everyone is made to write 700-page books with great political effect.)