Housing Benefit Cuts?

[mwrpoole]

Like Janee I have worked in public sector housing for 20 years, in several capacities including Housing Benefits and as a support worker. Janee is right about a large number of HB claimants being penisoners and about people being unemployed for relatively short periods of time.

The point i'd make in addition is that most HB claimants actually work and get HB as a top up to their low wages. Most of the people we are talking about are not teh so called "scroungers" talked about elsewhere. Instead they are working class people either on low wages or having lost their jobs through redundancy in a recession.

They dont choose to live in a rich areas they cant afford. They choose to live where they can afford and either rents go up or their personal circumstances change.

Its bad enough that unemployment is set to soar, but if losing yoru job means you will no longer be able to keep your family housed the tragedy is doubled.

Which leads to another point. By the nature of the level of rent it will be famiy sized acoomodation that will be hit worse. If families are made homeless who will pay for the children to have somewhere to live. Are the tories suggesting children should pitch up tents on Clapham Common?

The state will have to intervene and spend larger amounts either housing families in expensive temporary accommodation or take children into care. If you lose your home to rent arrears you are unable to get council housing, Instead the children face getting taken into care. It costs more than a place in Eton to take a child into care. Rather ironic considering the originators of this policy know all too well how much a place in Eton costs.

Only a moron or the upper classes could think of this policy, In this case they are both.

I haven't worked in Housing but I know the HB system inside out. During the late 1990's through to about 2006/07, HB was capped quite strictly and most claimants in private rented would have had to make a shortfall up. Housing Assoc rents were usually lower than the caps so no problem for them. The last Govt changed the rules about 3-4 years ago and introduced something called Local Housing Allowance. Basically for the area you live in you get a set weekly allowance for your housing, which is generally the average rent for your area. Idea was claimants could move around to cheaper properties and pocket the difference. Problem was landlords aren't thick and increased their rents to the maximum allowance for their area. Bit of a long story but in many cases rents have been increased by landlords to take advantage of HB system.

Now if Boris's social cleansing concern actually happened, there would be a lot of empty properties sitting around and suprise suprise landlords would have to reduce rents to attract tenants. Bit simplistic but that's what would happen.

One other rule the last Govt introduced was a concept of maximum bedrooms, or should I say no maximum. To get the allowance for a 2 bed house/flat, you need to prove you need 2 bedrooms, if you dont then you get the 1 bedroom allowance. Gets complicated with kids, kids under 11 can share a room but over 11 they get a room each if they are different sexes but have to share if they are brothers or sisters. The scenario the budget cuts are really trying to stop was a case I saw recently in Kensington where a family of 6 shared a 3 bed flat, but the parents were made redundant. They were given some advice by a know it all Housing expert and they promptly moved into a 5 bedroom mansion, the ages & sexes of the kids meant they could have 5 bedrooms and HB pays their £10k per month rent. The house is reckoned to be worth £2.5m!!!!!

The plans may be a bit severe but I think everyone would agree the above cases can't be allowed to continue.

 

[Dandyman]

i'm still wondering how people on low incomes and pensioners end up in £1000 pm rents as a result of mis-fortune and circumstance.

i find the side panel story of the chap recieving £125 housing benefits interesting and annoying spin. he's not going to be impacted, and moving out from zone 1/2 to zone 2/3 will cost him £5 a week or £11 for zone 5. hows he going to be worse off, with a job, having to pay that?

Have a read about how the caps on private rents were removed in the 1980s. People in social housing do not pay rent anything like that.

 

[beorhthelm]

Have a read about how the caps on private rents were removed in the 1980s. People in social housing do not pay rent anything like that.

im not sure i follow? they do or dont pay £1000 pm? others are suggesting they do.

 

[drew]

I think the government are right in what they're doing.

Most people end up living in a place that is affordable, close enough to work and family - in that order. It seems reasonable enough so why allow that to be significantly distorted by benefits?

What if you live in an area of a city where you grew up, close to where you go to work for a minimum wage and it's where your family all live. But then someone decides the area needs regeneration, the developers come in and put in swanky apartments and cafe culture and all of a sudden the property you live in but don't own is worth a lot more, through no fault of your own.

On a wider scale, it is important that some economic realism is restored in this country. If state handouts are cut people, by definition, will have to try harder to get work, and that's exactly what's needed if we're:

a) To get out of this present economic mess, and
b) To stay one step ahead of emerging economies.

Britain does not have a God-given right to be economically ahead of almost every other nation on Earth, and it stands to reason that if the labour of other countries is cheaper than ours, they work harder and the quality is better then, in time, we'll be caught up or overtaken.

As a nation we've behaved like a spoilt child whose had it's toys taken away. Cameron and Clegg are merely applying an economic "smack" to make the child come to its senses.

As for the second part of your post I can't quite understand what you are babbling on about. Are you suggesting that workers in the UK should accept wages on a par with those in the far east? Where is your evidence that their quality is better than UK manufacturers. As for suggesting that we as a nation are a spoilt child it is bizarre. We have a deficit because of the the recession. Prior to that, I understand anticipated spending was to be covered by expected growth and therefore increased revenue. Between 1997 and 2008, the economy increased in size from $1.359 trillion to $2.803 trillion, ie doubled in size.

But then we got hit by the credit crunch, as did most of the world.

Also, as far as I am aware, there is no economic law that requires the deficit to be eliminated within 5 years, it is just political ideaology. Perhaps if more money was spent in collecting taxes then £6b wouldn't go uncollected each year. If the government (of either persuasion) closed as many loopholes as possible that could recoup another £150b from those that use accountants to avoid taxes.

It's like everyone who has a mortgage over 25 years suddenly losing their job and then having to pay the mortgage off within 5 years rather than concerntrating on getting back into work so you can then afford the repayments again.