The poor in Britain dream of living the lifestyle of "trailer trash" in America , we really do.
I haven't been able to read through all of this yet, so I'm going to come back to it, but what is it about trailer park life that is really appealing from the Brit perspective?
ummmm. I decided to read some articles about Americam trailer park life, just to check that my image of it is close enough to the reality not to make my answer laughable in yoUr eyeS. Actuially my image does sem to match the reality, but, what's totally gobsmacked me was some stuff about WHY americans live in trailer parks but Brits don't . I mean, you guys do seemto think we have a choice, and
prefer for various reasons to live in inner city tenements instead . Whereas it mostly comes down to: there's no space in England to spread out the housing like it is a trailer park, so that's never gonna be a cheap option unless you park them in a place where local employment is virtually zero. Which is mostly the case, in deed The trailerr parks we have mostly serve as retirement villages, or holiday camps; and they're not near as cheap as the American counterparts.
I just read " limited housing options in the US for low income people. The threshold at which they're eligible for subsidised housing is much higher than in European countries so people that might live in a council house in the UK don't have that opportunity here" Actually, unless we're very lucky, we don't have that opportunity in the UK either, not any more. The local councils have long-since been constrained (by Tory Government rulings) to sell off their houusing stock, at a discount, to tenants on demand. That's led to nearly all the really habitable stock findinfg it's way into private hands (often unscupulous mortgage brokers; also used by some as a cheap enrty into the buy-to-rent market; on occasion it even leads to the tenant actually owning the place they live in) . Of course "right to buy" is a huge disincentive to building more social housing, hence the really huge shortfall in Social housing nowadays; and what's left is mostly rrally grim; the kind places nobody would want to buy, nor even live in, not for one second longer than they had to: : damp concrete tenements with excrement and piss in the stairwells, and such. Most of us are living in private rentals (scatterered through what ince used to be a council estate) nowadays and have no security of tenure. Including myself, I've ben on the council lwaiting listss since my 27-year-old son was six, re-activated my application every time we had to move on, and never, ever got odfferered anything half-way acceptable. My description, above is of one the places they offerered me. Noways, you might get offerered somnething like that on a take-it-or leave it basis if your situation is extremely desperate (meaning getting evicted tomorrow, along with young children, but only if you provably haven't " deliberately made yourself homeless" eg by failing to pay all due rent ) ; otherwise , they'l;ll most likely have nothing at all for you.
Meantime , tyhe "welfare reforms" are all-too-likely to leave benefits claimants (most of whom are actually working) with a shorfall intheir rent money. As a consequence most of the private landlord won;t even consider a tenant on welfare, nowadays, so your chances of finding half-way acceptable private housing is even slimmer. and it won;t be genuinely affordable, not even if it;'s appalling . Those "specialist" landlords know you don't have any other choic except the street , so they ask for maximuium they possibly can.
Soyou can probably see one big attraction of the trailer park, if that were an option? (And yiou can see why i put up with my mad landlady?This house is really good comparec with the alternatives. I have looked at the alternatives)
Paradoxically you have a lot more security and stabilty in those "mobile" homes, and the chance to buikld a sense of community. Working-class nglish communities barely exist, anymore; too many people get moved about too much , and your neighbours are constantly changing. I don't just because of tenants falling behind with the rent. In my area, Landlords often get rid of families to convert a place to the more-profitable student accomadation. There are all sorts of reasons why you might have to go.
Anither attraction is the rural or semi-rural lovcation of the parks, away all from the crime, the noise and the antisocial behaviour you get in inner-city areas; amnd closer to the countryside.
That website also stated being close to workplace as the reason why we "choose" to live in houses instead. Hmmm, Well I meantioned being close to the jobcentre as an attraction didn't i? But inasdmuch as industry still exists round here, it's mostly located at , or beyond the outskirts of cities and nigh-on-inaccessible by public transport,,If youdon't hace private transport, , there's not much you can do excvept hope for the best, That's one area where the big shift towards agency work has really screwed people like myself (non-drivers). You've no chance of making a regular car-sharing arrangements when neither you nor your co-workers here on a releglar , predictable basis, You might catch a lift, or manage to share a taxi, you might not. You might have to walk all the way home at 3am, as I did on a few occasiobns). But there's definitely no living near your workp[lace, not when that workplace is apt to chop and change .
I'd find America even tougher, personally, given that I just can't drive, but one other enviable thing about America from our perspective is that motoring is obviously cheaper, and even the poorest people drive, usually.
Public transport here is kaput, since it was privatised. It makes no actual attempt to meet people's actual needs, and just runs the profitable services, at the profuitable tines, at increasingly mindblowing prices.
It#s not so much a case of having limited options here, but of scratching around for possibilities, and constantly wondering if youy've finally come down to having no options left at all, yet? A trailer park in America is close enough to absolute rock bottom to feel relatively secure, methinks, without coming right down to street level