Renting somewhere to live

is getting almost impossible. It is also getting more difficult for those who are "fortunate" enough to own the properties people need to rent. 

I was talking to someone who owns a rental property yesterday or, as he puts it, the bank owns the property. He is responsible for it and the mortgage which goes with it. 

The property is for his "old age - for retirement". He is trying to do the right thing and not be a drain on the welfare system. It is becoming increasingly difficult to do that. 

He cannot increase the rent when he wants to increase it. The government has put a stop to such things. He knows it is a move designed to ensure that some people do not attempt to make life even more difficult for people who need to rent. It is also increasingly difficult to shift tenants who do the wrong thing or do not pay the rent.

All of these things concern him but what really had him riled was the story in the paper of the council which has told a woman "living in a caravan" on a private property that she can no longer live there. You can only occupy a caravan on a residential property for 30 days a year. In the middle of one of the most serious housing crises we have faced the council is insisting that this has to stop. That the caravan is only being used as a bedroom and all other activities take place in the adjacent house is apparently irrelevant.

"Oh, we had a complaint about it," was the response of the council. Really? I wonder who complained and why? No doubt it was some officious individual who is determined to make trouble.  

Living in a caravan is possible. There are many people who do it. I know a couple who spent eleven years living in a caravan while they built up their now thriving business. If they had tried to build a house in that time they would not have the business. It was not easy but they did it. 

There are places here which have on-site caravans in which people live. They are not nearly as common as they are in some parts of the world but they do exist and they have meant the difference between shelter or no shelter for some. Isn't this preferable to a tent?

There are yet other people who live in caravans by choice. They travel to a new site every so often and pick up seasonal work which might last more than thirty days. Do we stop that happening too? Of course we don't.

My parents began married life in what was really a galvanised iron shed. It was unlined and it had a dirt floor over which linoleum had been laid. There was no bathroom and no power until the Senior Cat helped the man who owned the shed put up a windmill to generate enough power to get lights at night - when the wind was blowing. (The shed was almost on top of a hill and the wind did blow a lot.) It was very substandard accommodation but this was after WWII and there was a housing crisis then too. The Senior Cat had been sent to teach in a small country town and there was no other accommodation available once he married. Prior to that he had shared a tiny "bedroom" with another teacher in a house in the little township. The bedroom was actually a back verandah - closed in with boards and hessian sacks. In the same house there were children they both taught.  A caravan might well have seemed like luxury.

I really don't understand the council's attitude in all this. If housing was plentiful and rental properties much easier (and thus cheaper) to find then it might make sense. Right now there is a unit for rent in the court across the way. The family living there have moved on. The landlord can now increase the rent - and has done so. I spoke to the land agent and the rent is going up. "He's being reasonable," she told me but we both know that it will likely be more than fifty percent of someone's income. That is not reasonable.

Living in a caravan should not be a permanent solution but it should be made possible right now. There might need to be some conditions attached such as proof they are saving for a deposit or actively seeking more permanent  accommodation but it surely can be done. It would be better than a tent hidden in the park.