Councils responsibilty to find housing for large families?
@donnadean1980 (97)
January 18, 2007 7:41am CST
Just been watching something on the news- there is a family of 7 who have been waiting for a bigger house to be given to them from their local council.
Do they have the right to demand a bigger house from their council when they made the choice to have five children?
If people cannot afford to house a family of such a large size, surely they shouldn't have had so many children in the first place and should have excersised some self control?!
Is it really the responsibility of the council to make them a high priority case when it is not the councils fault that the family is so large?
What do you think?
2 responses
@nnsb75 (632)
• United States
18 Jan 07
I just don't agree with that, If they cannot afford to raise a big family so why in the heck they made so many children, I just think some people are abusing the help from gov. when there are other people out there who really needs help, I've seen so many couple that has a lot of kids and their living on the gov. housing and those who can afford to live they had only 1,2 or 3 kids.
@donnadean1980 (97)
•
18 Jan 07
I agree with you. I think some people believe that it is their "right" to procreate and to hell with the consequences. We live in an era where birth control is easy to obtain, so there is no excuse for having such a large family if you cannot support them on your own.
@pumpkinjam (8769)
• United Kingdom
20 Sep 07
The whole point of council houses is to help people who couldn't afford to find somewhere else otherwise. I know how difficult it is to get on the property ladder so I don't blame anyone for asking for a council house. It's not as if it's being given either, the family would still have to pay rent just as they would if they went through any other lettings agency.
The size of the house seems to be the issue here. You never mentioned whether the family could afford to look after the children. Not everyone is lucky enough to be able to buy their own house - some people never do - but why shouldn't they have a family?
As I say, it's not as if the council would be just giving them a house.
However, saying all that, I don't think the council should make them a high priority case because they did make the choice to have that many children but I see no reason why they don't have as much right as anyone else to a council house, particularly if they are going to be the ones to pay the rent for it.
