[blazey]

Maybe it shouldn't even be for 10 years. There is a certain stigma that comes with living in a council house, usually the label that you are lazy and can't be bothered to work 40 hours a week on minimum wage and would rather claim benefits. Personally I can see where the label comes from in a lot of instances.

Council houses probably should be seen as a temporary solution for most people, a way of being able to afford to live whilst getting back on your feet. Then once you have you can move into private rented accommodation and remove yourself from the social stigma and hopefully progress through life and your career to one that means you never have to consider council property again and then those who ARE struggling like you once were can have the same opportunity to live in cheap accommodation and work their way up as well.

To be honest, the problem is that you can often rent privately now with your benefits anyway so there isn't really much organisation to the chaos of renting whilst on benefits or very low income. People scrape by in expensive properties sometimes whilst others float by on huge amounts of benefits and can afford expensive TVs, nice cars, holidays etc. The whole system is ridiculous.

I find myself increasingly frustrated by the benefits system but unable to vent my anger towards it without offending people who seem to think they receive benefits as some sort of right and can't be bothered to work because they'd get the same amount of money anyway, if not less.

It actually disgusts me. So whilst some people NEED benefits and NEED council houses and all the rest of it, I think the coalition government is right to review the system starting at employment and accommodation, because it is unemployment and council houses which makes people feel a certain way in the first place and not always in a way that makes them motivated to find a job.