Do you have even one, documented, case where a foreign person has been given accommodation, other than on a very temporary basis, or with an overriding need (such as young children) ahead of someone indigenous to this country? I very much doubt it.

Whilst a number of racist political parties and groups have made such claims in the past no such claims have been found to have any substance at all.

For those talking about ‘free’ and subsidised housing, it might surprise you to learn that the vast majority of those in receipt of housing benefit are actually in work!

Perhaps if we don’t like subsidising accommodation we need to look at a)the level of the minimum wage, and b) the rents demanded by by too many of our private landlords.

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They don’t give houses away (unless you are on the dole)

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Houses are definitely too expensive to buy… but not reason to give someone a council house. I can’t afford to buy a house and am renting a privately owned house.

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salopian The the majority of decent people suffer for the sake of the minority element.I would also say again we have no free houses some one pays for them.

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Colin,

It seems doubtful that you will have been fully informed of the circumstances of the family in question.

You cannot assume that simply because they were of Asian origin that they had anything less in terms of immigration status than any ‘white’ family who found themselves homeleless – nor can you assume that they were treated differently because of their ethnic origin – there’s no evidence of that.

There are many situations in which people find themselves homeless and without funding – sometimes very suddenly. The same rules apply to all such people, and the single mot influential factor in allowing housing is the presence of children – inevitably their welfare takes precedence over almost all other factors.

The suggestion by several ill-informed contributors here (not you) is that somehow ‘being foreign’ (and by that I think they mean ‘having a different skin colour’) somehow entitles people to preferential treatment. It doesn’t – full stop.

No matter what fiction people read in the tabloids or hear from racists such as the BNP, there are very limited rights available to people ‘just turning up’ in this country. Often thay arrive without documents, so are very difficult to deport – often the best we can do is to hand them back to the French if they’re caught trying to cross the channel – and they in turn cannot deport them due to their lack of official identity.

We have nowhere to detain them – and the very people who so object to their presence would often be the first to throw up their hands in horror at a detention centre being built in their back yard.

Benefits paid to those who are granted a temporary stay whilst potential asylum issues are sorted out are very, very low – typically just a small allowance for food, with no accommodation entitlement, and they are not allowed to work. What else would people have us do – lock up children?!

How would potential asylum seekers nd up in Shropshire? Well, that’s because councils share the responsibility across the country, rather than allowing ports to take all of the responsiblity. Contrary to all the rubbish you see printed we do stop many illegal immigrants from entering the UK, and we also deport many where it is legally possible under international law.

Sadly, these people are led to believe that our streets are paved with gold, and we have too many ‘employers’ willing to exploit them, and to undercut legitimate employers.

But all this really has nothing to do with the housing shortage. One of the principal reasons for the current shortage of social housing was the loss of the council housing stock under the ‘right to buy’ scheme in the ’80s, and the subsequent failure to invest the proceeds in replacements.

Instead, I’m afraid, it went on 40% + tax cuts for the wealthy…

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