what on earth are you going on about horsemouth?

... and in a way (and horsemouth has recourse to the  phrase in a way a lot) it simplifies matters. it makes it clearer how many people we will be able to rehouse out of __________. 

and that number seems to be 8 ladies and gentlemen. 8 into shared and co-op owned, and an unspecified (as yet) number back into short-life and into single. 

what on earth are you going on about horsemouth?

horsemouth lives in a housing co-operative. the housing co-op houses members at (hopefuly) lower than market rents in a city that has for years been engaged in driving people out to the margins (generally he thinks resisting this a is a good thing to do).  the co-op has co-op owned property (predominantly shared) and it has short-life property (predominantly single)  that it gets from larger housing organisations. the hazard of this kind of stock is that the larger housing organisations will at some point want it back (and when they want it back they tend to want all of it back).

that day has come at the block of ________. and the co-op is looking to rehouse 20 plus people. ok that's not quite true the 'eviction ban' and backlogs in the courts mean we're probably talking about something may/june ish. 

except in only has the 8 places in shared plus whatever single it gets from the larger housing provider (when it gets round to it). horsemouth is grateful - it actually houses people - as opposed to various housing campaigns that don't. 

at this point it is what it is. 

there was a plan to increase the amount of co-op owned by selling a house and using the equity tied up in it purchase an increased amount of housing for the members.  this has just died the death for a variety of reasons that horsemouth is not yet clear about. 

and in a way this just makes the situation clearer. 

horsemouth can't pretend he's not disappointed. but to be frank the additional members who would be housed by such means are in single figures. phew. it seems a very unrewarding thing into which to put so much effort.

however not only does it increase the number of people housed securely by the co-op it also increases the security of the co-op to be housing more people and makes it more financially viable (which is a good thing horsemouth thinks).

horsemouth expects that at some point more people in the large shared houses will decide they actually want to live in smaller shared flats (and the whole process will go off again).  he also expects that the combination of brexit and covid will increase the amount of short life that will eventually come on tap.  but it won't do so immediately, it will take a year or two to happen. 

lots of people will be reassessing their commitment to the city. so be it. 

the paying less rent gives people more time to live their lives and to live their better lives, to be more creative, to make music, to make films etc. horsemouth thinks it is worthwhile but dew as they say in south wales the odds are stacked against us.

horsemouth moving rapidly down kubler-ross strasse past bargaining strasse and towards acceptance platz. phew. suddenly he yells, 'fucking bollocks' and then to himself 'no shhh come on'. pfft. 

.