Housing for all [OTTO LOWINGER]

• IN the illusory pursuit for equality, now espoused by all the country’s major political parties, yet somehow more unattainable than ever, the reality on our streets is that a new class category is being catered for.

That is, the downwardly mobile and deskilled middle class.

What else can explain the proliferation of grim high-rise blocks of flats, tomorrow’s slums?

Unlike in the heyday of social housing construction, when “housing for all” seemed to be genuinely pursued offering well-proportioned and generously spaced flats, today’s new-builds, which tower over us casting great shadows over out streets, seem to have a built-in obsolescence and aimed at less well-off 30-somethings trying desperately to get on the housing ladder.

In return for their hard-earned mortgage payments, they will get grim, mean, deteriorating little boxes.

So instead of sorting out our housing crisis, developers are coining in the cash while they store up problems for today’s 30-year-old generation when it gets into its 70s and yet another massive black hole is found in our country’s budget.

Surely the government should recognise our housing market is not fit for purpose, namely providing decent shelter and living for all citizens.

At the moment it is being used as a cash cow for big construction companies, never mind the rough-sleepers and slum-dwellers. We want true, good, housing for all.

W JOHNSON,
Address supplied