Here comes the half-thought-outedness.
If you intend to downgrade them, where are you going to downgrade them to? You can't put them in a hostel if they have three kids, it's just unfeasible.

You could build more, cheaper houses I suppose, but where? They're already building hundreds of new homes just about everywhere and it's still not enough to match demand. But then you've just spent out even more money to have them sit about and not work, which is what you seem to believe everyone ahead of you in the government housing chain is intent on doing.

The best compromise between the government's back pocket and the people's best interests (all the people, not just the people you deem fit to be allowed to have a house) is what we have now, which is why it's what we have now.
( Shegetz Chris Kamara's comedy moustache, Tue 5 Feb 2008, 14:20, archived)

I wouldn't say do that to somebody with kids
It's not only unfeasible, but it's unfair.

I privately rent; I have no bitterness about the housing list personally, but as I know what it's like to be unable to find a house, yet knowing there's people who apply for houses once they're eighteen getting their parents to agree that they've kicked them out (even if they get on like a house on fire and there's not a bad word/request to move out been said) so the child has a 'better start in life' is hardly comforting when you're a 35 year old desperately trying to get out of a hostel so you can have your kids stay over at a house because you've divorced their mother, is there?
( Methylene Blue - electrohead, Tue 5 Feb 2008, 14:28, archived)

Now generally I'd say that using personal experience isn't a solid argument
but I fell out with my Mum when I was 16 and left home and the council did fuck all.
I also know someone who had a proper letter from a parent stating that they wouldn't be allowed home and nothing was done to help them either.
(Psycho Eyes, Tue 5 Feb 2008, 14:34, archived)

I had those problems when I was sixteen, too
I never got on with my mum. Unfortunately, the council would do bugger all unless I was 18, apart from put me in the hostel that had murders, drugs, and allsorts in it.

Problem was, whereas social services couldn't do anything for me, they intervened from putting me in that place.
( Methylene Blue - electrohead, Tue 5 Feb 2008, 14:37, archived)

I think you are under the impression
that anyone under 21 applying for a house is immediately accepted and given a three bedroomed semi-detached with all mod cons and a 50 sq. ft. reception area. Not so, at least around here. I have a friend who was legitimately thrown out by his parents at 18, and he was given a one-room bedsit with drug dealers and intermittent electricity.

Not somewhere you'd want to have your kids sleep over, even if there was somewhere for them to sleep.I sympathise with the plight of the 35 year old in this example, but the fact remains that by the age of 35, you should have the experience and earning power (and possibly savings) to get yourself back on your own two feet, something which is distinctly harder when you're 18 and have just been slung out on the street.
( Shegetz Chris Kamara's comedy moustache, Tue 5 Feb 2008, 14:38, archived)

No I'm not
I also know you're 25 when you're given a house. I just know that even when you are given a bedsit, you can bid on houses in certain places, and if there's nobody at that precise bidding season needing a house, then that house can be filled up by an unemployed 19 year old with no view to work because it's easier to sit on your arse.
( Methylene Blue - electrohead, Tue 5 Feb 2008, 14:44, archived)