TheEmpireStrikesDak

I said it’s a start, not the whole answer to the housing problem.

Also, just as examples:

Long-term empty homes To be classed as ‘long-term empty’ a home has to be liable for council tax and to have been unfurnished and not lived in for over 6 months. This figure is increasing all the time, but as at October 2023, it was 261,189.

Holiday lets These are an extension of second homes - homes not used as primary residences but used to make profit for their owners, short-let for several weeks or months of each year, blocking them from becoming anybody’s home. In many cases owners ‘flip’ to business rates which are often cheaper than paying council tax. As at March 2024, there were believed to be at least 85,000 of these such dwellings, flipped to business rates.

https://www.actiononemptyhomes.org/facts-and-figures

I’m not against building more homes. We need more council homes for sure. Housing should be seen as a human need, not a commodity to trade.

They could always start with this issue:

https://www.actiononemptyhomes.org/why-empty-homes-matter

But how is any of this the fault of immigrants? My dad wants to kick me out. If I tell the council I’m being made homeless, I will get sent to a hostel in Luton. According to my tory-loving colleague, this is the fault of asylum seekers.

The actual truth is this is the fault of Thatcher and successive governments selling off council homes. Rich foreign scalpers buy up property and sit on it until it makes them money. There are thousands of empty residential properties gathering dust so they can build up in value for these wealthy scalpers. Flats where £200k can buy you a 25% share of a studio is what’s shown as affordable housing in London. Housing has become a commodity for the rich to trade and profit off, rather than a human need. I’m working class, on a little above minimum wage and soon losing my job again (because of the council, not immigrants. First job I lost was because of Philip Green and his wife being greedy pigs).

Tell me how immigrants are making my life worse, but the wealthy get a pass. Immigrants are keeping a lot of businesses going (just see the Brexit farm debacle).

So you can look for the easy scapegoat if you want, or you can actually look at what’s causing these issues. As People vs Elon showed in their poster, they tell you to blame immigrants so you don’t blame billionaires.

Please do explain for us unenlightened plebs.