So they want a "bedroom" tax?

I had to move out of a "four bedroom" house to a "two bedroom" unit which is about a quarter of the size.  It was difficult. I gave away a great many books I would have preferred to keep. I also gave away many things of great sentimental value. I knew it had to be done but it was hard to do.

I had no choice about moving out. Brother Cat, Middle Cat and I tried to work out how to keep the house with the idea that Youngest Nephew will need somewhere in the future but we could not do it after the Black Cat's demands were met.

I know that I would not have felt happy living alone in a house that size when there are families who need housing. It would have felt morally wrong to me. I know I am lucky to be where I am, to have a "roof over my head" but it does not feel like "home".  But, I am also not happy with the way the house was sold or the fact that it will almost certainly be knocked down a few years from now and two small dwellings put on it.

People do want to keep their houses. They want to keep them for a variety of reasons. Around the corner from the old house there is one which is currently rented. It belongs to a man who lost his wife at a young age. The house belonged to her parents and she had grown up there. He is away teaching in the country now but, when the time comes, he will return to the house and his memories of his partner. Two doors down from there the house on the corner has been empty for more than a decade now. Occasionally someone goes in and mows the "lawn" - really just weeds. It has long since ceased to be a tax issue. The family apparently does not want to sell "Dad's place". 

There are three houses with single residents in that same street. All of them are elderly. They have long since lost their partners but they do not wish to move.They are comfortable there. Around the next corner there is someone who cannot move out of the house. It would leave them homeless because of the terms of the will. 

On one corner of that street a house is being built. The architecture is not in keeping with the rest of the district. It has at least five bedrooms, a garage for two cars and parking for more. The house has been lying there unfinished for over a year. 

I could go on. In every street there is a house which would be ripe for the government to bring in a "bedroom" tax because the houses are not being fully utilised. 

There are people I know who would like to move out but the cost of moving out is also high. There are all sorts of taxes and charges to be met. "Downsizing" costs too much both financially and emotionally. It is not a simple matter of "finding somewhere smaller". If you have lived in an area all your life, or at least for the majority of your life, your services are here. You know your doctor, your shops, your neighbours and more. Moving somewhere else can be very hard to do. It was why I worked so hard to find something within a certain radius and why others do the same.

When things like a bedroom tax are raised little or, more likely, no thought it is given to the psychological as well as the practical side of all this. A bedroom tax sounds like a good idea perhaps, a good idea until the social and emotional implications are considered. 

I stayed within the area and it is good to be able to go into the local library or the post office and have people address me by name, to be able to go on caring about some of oldest and frailest of residents. I may not do much to actually help but if they want to chat for a few minutes in the shopping centre I know it is important for them. Yes, at times it drives me mad. I want to get on - but then I think it might be me one day.

I will shortly be away travelling for five weeks and I have mixed feelings about leaving the familiar safety of this area, a place where I understand the traffic flow and know where help is to be found if I need it for myself or others.  I will miss seeing people I know.  Travel will be good for me but moving permanently against one's wishes is something else. Bedroom taxes might sound as if they are part of the solution to the housing problem but there is more to housing than the number of bedrooms available.