While there is housing crisis, houses are being demolished as a symbolic gesture. What can we learn?

In recent cases of houses which have been demolished where there were criminal cases that people would rather erase from history. One of a couple in Derbyshire, UK who set fire to their own home to set the husband's mistress up for arson but ended up killing all 6 of their children sleeping in the house at the time. The other is the Ohio, US abductor who had held women and a girl whom he had abducted captive inside of the house for a number of years.

Both cases are a demonstration of horrendous things human is capable of inflicting on others. People abhor at these events. In interviews with their respective neighbours and the general public, there seems to be a consensus that the properties deservedly need to be torn down. In view of housing shortage, however, could these houses be better used for something useful such as housing homeless people, or used as an office premises for charity? There will be an argument that the memories of the cruelty would remain with the properties. On the other hand, we know of buildings that have been kept despite the gruesome history behind them such as houses with association with the holocaust, combats during wars, prisons that have been converted into hotels (e.g. Malmaison, Oxford, Hotel Katajanokka, Helsinki, Jailhotel, Luzern).

In societies where people still sleep in the street because they have no job, cannot afford renting a place, let alone owning one, can we afford perfectly, structurally sound buildings being torn down while letting people sleep rough with no roof over their heads?

Human Exploitation

I went to view a property yesterday in Rusholme which is an area known for housing large Indian sub-continent immigrants and thus the main road running through it is nicknamed the 'Curry Mile' with hundreds of Indian restaurants and sweets shops lining the whole street. There used to be non-ethnic shops dotted around 12-13 years ago. These had long been overtaken by Indian catering businesses.

On arriving at the house, I was told by the estate agent that there are people living in the property. This doesn't deter me as from my experience viewing properties, it means that the owner or tenant can show buyers around and answer questions about the house or the area and they are often happy to do so. On this occasion, however, the estate agent was informed that the tenants are sleeping. This was 3pm when we got to the property. The estate agent asked reluctantly whether we want to still have a look at the bedrooms despite people sleeping in them at the time. The other viewer (a woman, also of Indian sub-continent descent but with native English accent) insisted on seeing them. I was hesitant and went inside to see the lounge, the kitchen and the bathroom. I decided not to see the rooms where people were sleeping.

It turned out that there must have been a minimum of 7 or 8 men sharing this 2-bed terraced house so there was no beds. Three or four men were lying the floor with blankets which seem to be used to designate each individual's 'bed'. I am not squeamish about the lack of beds which by my standard is not unusual, even in a cold country. Instead, the property was opened for us by another well-to-do man, again of Indian sub-continent descent driving a red Audi. I cannot say for certain that he was a 'handler' for these young men who work in Sanam restaurant (as gathered by the many plagues in the living room bearing Arabic writings with Sanam Sweet shop/restaurant name written on them in English) but it is quite curious as to what his role was, why he would not answer any of the viewer's questions and we were told that he was not the owner/vendor.

With living conditions such as this, one wonders what immigration status these men are in the U.K. under that they would accept sharing a tiny room of a couple of square meters with 3-4 other men and sharing one toilet with 6 or 7. Life cannot be very comfortable. I know that the notion of comfort can be relative but it still saddens me that people could be so exploited to allow one man a luxury of an expensive car which costs as much as the house that 7 or 8 others squat in and whose combined salary will not be enough to pay a market rate rent in a normal living condition, let alone to afford to buy it. And these men and their handler are probably of the same age and race.

The incident has certainly put me off buying this property which I had thought was occupied under normal circumstances. What will happen to these men when the property exchanges and the new owner wants them out? It has also put me off Indian sweets. The men probably need to make a living and they are probably pursuing their dreams of betting their lives. But they could very well be victims of human trafficking. By patronizing the trade, do you, by proxy, support the human exploitation?