From the Observer letters page, I have nothing to add:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2008/apr/27/13

How I agree with Jill Insley ('Whatever it's worth, a house is a home', Cash, last week). My sister and I have just had to clear my 89-year-old mother's house. Just before I left it, I walked through the house we had shared as a family for nearly 55 years and felt I was seeing it for the first time, just as my lovely mum and dad had when they had first been offered it by the London County Council in 1955 after living in squalid conditions in inner London. They were living in a one-room flat with eight-month-old twins. Along with thousands of other needy families, they had been given the chance to live in a new house with a garden. I know what joy they felt at being given the chance to live in a real home, because I felt tears of gratitude myself as I walked around that house remembering the pride that my parents felt in their home and the simple happiness we had there.

What a thrill it must have been for them when they first saw it. It was a home and the hub of our lives. The simple pleasure and pride of being lucky enough to live in a decent home seems to have been lost in the idea that homes are for making huge profits. I feel that my mum and dad were the lucky ones.
Ms D Cameron