What our deputies seem to think is affordable living and what is affordable living are worlds apart.
The States’ view on affordable living seems to be based on fiction and opinions whereas those struggling to live know the facts and truth by having to go to charities and food banks for handouts. I keep hearing our deputies saying what a wonderful place Guernsey is to live. Well as an island full of beautiful scenery, it is, but as the working-class people from my generation who never had the cards dealt in their favour enough to be able to save and buy a house, Guernsey through bad government and management has become a nightmare and sadly it does not even feel like our home anymore.
Local people who have worked all their lives (and I mean worked doing physical jobs that have left many handicapped in some way through their hard labour) have been lucky enough to reach retirement age and think they can now rest up and draw their pension are being humiliated into going cap in hand for money and handouts and the States affordable houses play a massive part in that.
The figures here are not necessarily the correct ones for any individual and I have kept them at round figures as an example. A person works for 50-plus years and retires with a retirement sum of £250 per week. Their affordable house rent is £245 per week leaving them with £5. Crumbs, a person could not even buy themselves a beer on this island today with that money. So, what can they do to survive?
Well, there is only one thing. They have to go cap in hand for income support and even with that handout they cannot survive so end up having to go to food banks and charities. We are all extremely grateful to the people who donate these things but it should not be happening when we worked so hard to pay our bills and bring up a family. I cannot even identify today with the Guernsey I was brought up in.
Rod Hamon
St Peter Port
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