Bleedin' heart quango asks for more money *yawn*

From the BBC:

More than 2.65 million people in England will be forced to live in overcrowded conditions by 2011, a campaign group has warned. The National Housing Federation says the number will increase by 15%, a rise of 350,000 people, as unemployment soars during the recession...

NHF chief executive David Orr said it was essential to continue building new family homes during the downturn. He said: "To prevent overcrowding reaching epidemic proportions, we believe the government should introduce a house-building fiscal stimulus in the Budget, with around £6.35bn being spent on constructing 100,000 new homes for social rent over the next two years...

The Department of Communities and Local Government said it was committed to major increases in the supply of affordable and social housing to meet the needs of families on waiting lists or living in overcrowded conditions. A spokesman said: "Along with an £8bn programme to deliver more affordable housing, we are providing a range of support to keep up the delivery of the homes this country needs..." The government was "constantly looking" at what more could be done to support the housing market in the current climate, he added."

Just a couple of points:

The National Housing Federation* is not a 'campaign group', it is the umbrella body of housing associations, which are in turn massive taxpayer-subsidised quangos. So it's hardly a surprise that the DCLG is singing from the same hymnsheet.

Why would a fall in incomes lead to 'overcrowding'? It's the same number of people and the same number of homes, isn't it? Provided prices fell accordingly, so that properties were not left vacant (which could easily be achieved by scrapping empty property discounts for a start), it would all sort itself out.

The government is caught in a cleft stick here: do they want to keep house prices up as far as possible? (yes), while at the same time expanding their vast empire of guangocracies and 'social' housing, which all things being equal, would push house prices down again? (yes). But seeing as their doing all this with our money, I don't suppose they care, it just leaves a bigger mess for the Tories to sort out.

* Not to be confused with The Homebuilders' Federation, which is a good old-fashioned industry lobby group, who are perfectly entitled to call for subsidies provided the government tells them to get stuffed.