No ‘Get Out Of Jail Free’ card for people at mercy of our unfair housing system

Ihave never lived in a home that had a back and front door. I’ve never had a dining room to eat my dinner in. Or a private garden that I could lay claim to.

Neither has my mum.

And, with the housing market as dysfunctional as it is, it’s hard to imagine that should I decide to have children, that they would either.

This is the same for families across Scotland because our systems are broken. We are being left to the mercy of private landowners, property developers and oversubscribed social housing.

Working all of your life isn’t enough. Cutting back and saving tens of thousands of pounds isn’t enough. Doing all of the things that current homeowners love to tell you that they did, while omitting the deposit that they had was a result of buying and selling their council house, isn’t enough. The only thing guaranteed to get people on the property ladder right now is £100K cash in the bank, a privilege afforded to few.

This has come to the centre of my mind because my friend and my godson have just been served notice on the house they have called home for four years. The house that she carried him home from the hospital to. The house that he took his first steps in. The house where his height is marked inside a cupboard.

Despite assurances that it was somewhere that they could be for the long term, the temptation of getting 20% over the value has proven too much for the landlord. A landlord who doesn’t actually live in Scotland and who is selling more than one of their houses here for a quick buck.

This affects us all because my friend is a third year university student who is on the cusp of realising her enormous potential. My godson is a carefree dreamer, whose biggest challenge at the minute is what voice he wants to read The Gruffalo in. We all do better when families are thriving.

Rather than supporting my friend towards graduation and godson towards school with stability, this broken system is putting a heavy load on their shoulders.

Recently released figures show that in the last 10 years, the cost of rent for twobedroom houses in Scotland has risen by 25%. Average wages have not increased at the same rate. With this, added to the limited amount of homes for private rent, it’s not as simple as just getting a new place.

Social media is full of stories of people across Scotland perplexed by the current situation. Some landlords are even asking potential tenants to compete with each other on rent prices, offering a lease to the highest bidder. Things have become so bad that the Living Rent Campaign is calling for fairness and a complete overhaul in what landlords are allowed to charge.

And where is social housing in all of this? Overwhelmed by demand and given limited money to build new houses.

Recent figures suggest almost 150,000 of us are on a waiting list for social housing. Reduced to rationing what limited housing is available with the blunt measure of a points system, the only saving grace is that people in critical vulnerability are prioritised.

Few people have any realistic chance of being offered a suitable home before their worry turns into a crisis. Like many of our services, housing leaders have focused scarce existing resources where they think people can come to the worst harm. And people risk being put to the back of the list for turning their first offer down, no matter how suitable it is.

The offer is so scant that there is little space for the joy, excitement and standards that those buying homes are sold as part of the package.

When I registered as homeless, that same approach led to me accepting a flat in a soon-to-be-demolished high-rise block, where most flats were empty and covered in brutal metal security doors. I had grown up in these flats in happier times and did not want to go back. But having outstayed my welcome in my friend’s spare room and without any options, I took it.

We can do better than that. Living a dignified and productive life requires access to decent housing. Right now, hundreds of thousands of people in our country are in precarious and challenging circumstances, and being pushed to the brink of crisis by a rigged system. Monopoly was only supposed to be a board game, not training for adult life.

Central and local governments needs to build more good quality houses. And they need to do it now.

Jamie Kinlochan is a campaigner for social justice and a consultant, working to tell the stories of those who are often unheard.

Living a productive life requires access to decent housing

MONEY GAME: Monopoly was only supposed to be a board game for all the family, not training for buying and selling property.