Ray Calver (Letters, January 3) may well be right that one’s destiny is not automatically predetermined by birthplace or postcode, but they are great predictors. What is needed is equitable opportunity, not equal opportunity. Poor people and poor neighbourhoods need more resources to overcome the inherent advantage that those living in better-resourced, richer neighbourhoods receive.
There is an automatic benefit to a child from having safe, stable, warm and comfortable housing. Children find it much harder to learn or escape a poor upbringing without it. If they are having to move from their rented accommodation and schools every year and/or there is a deficit budget every week for food and basic expenses, then those conditions aren’t conducive to anyone rising above their circumstances, especially if their parents are stressed all the time.
I speak as the first child of three of a mother who was widowed 60 years ago before I was two (the last still to be born) but who was at least fortunate to have had a cheap state loan on the house she and my father had recently moved into. God knows she worked and struggled to provide us with the best upbringing she could, and very successfully at that, but underpinning all was the stability of having our own house. We never had to live a transient existence where we were constantly restarting our lives.
It’s time those like Ray Calver
