NOT a week goes by when we do not have another report of homelessness, with “street begging”, having its impact on Bournemouth.

To take then one major root of homelessness, generations of householders, from the 1950s to the 1980s, have effectively robbed current generations of near all hope of ever owning their own home, or for many of even renting.

None of this had been exactly intentional. It has all built through house inflation, decade after decade. Vast amounts of wealth accruing from owning property. No real wealth is created. Simply a classic case of wealth ownership spawning inflationary pseudo-wealth.

Very nice if you are an owner. Bad luck if you are not.

In the mid-1980s an average semi in our towns, costing £32,000, was four times average salary, £8,000. The figures now are the same semi at £300,000, 12 times average salary, £25,000. An impossible situation for younger generations.

And so it is you will find older generations now “liquidating capital” in “equity release”. Older generations taking off on world cruises, younger generations ending up homeless on our streets.

And leading all this hyper property inflation, the banking industry of course, including the building societies. Most, not all, only too happy with property inflation, as mouth watering “remuneration packages” show only too clearly.

In our own town, Bournemouth, Nationwide chief executive Joe Garner with a reported salary of £2.35 million. And expenses, as reported in the Echo June 2018, £595 a day. And that salary package, Nationwide tell us, is low remuneration, in the banking world.

Everyone in the industry at the trough. The collateral damage, millions cannot afford homes, many ending in the streets.

JEFF WILLIAMS

Jubilee Road, Parkstone