The new series of How to Get a Council House (6 July), set in unlovely Portsmouth, could hardly be more topical. With the Government slicing away at housing benefit and selling off social housing, we need to think about where poor people are expected to live.People who come to Portsmouth City Council looking to be housed are, for one reason or another, either homeless or on the brink of homelessness. Here we met several clients, and the housing officers dealing with them. We also saw two available flats, a one-bedroomed example on the first floor, clean and overlooking some greenery. The other, two-bedroomed, was on the second floor of a nasty deck-access block, run-down and filthy. Who would get which flat? And why?Because housing is so emotive – or, to put it another way, so centr