Living in London on a low income/benefits

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Apologies for yet another London thread 😬. I absolutely love London, it would be my dream to live there, we visit as much as possible... but....financially I don't see how it would be possible. The other thread seems to be full of home owners who all live on the edge of one of the Royal parks, regularly visit the theatre, eat out often and enjoy what seems to be the lovely side of London.
Surely there must be a flip side? Last time I was there I got chatting to one of the housekeeping ladies and she has 3 teens, works in the hotel and her husband is a food delivery man. How on earth would a family like that survive? She also said she lives 10 minutes walking distance from Paddington Station, so not a cheap area either.
Does everyone get housing benefit? Is it easy to find a rental that accepts housing benefit? What is it like to live in a council estate with huge high rises? Are they generally safe? My understanding is that it takes years on waiting lists to get council/social housing, so what is the temporary accommodation like?
I'm assuming that those on low incomes aren't regularly visiting the theatre and eating in Borough Market, so is London living on a low income still so great?

London is a horrible place to be poor. Huge, and you’ll spend half your life underground, or either squashed on a bus that takes a hundred years to get anywhere, or squashed under the wheels of a lorry on your always about to be stolen bike. The money it costs to get through every day will make you feel physically ill. And then you’ll have extreme wealth shoved in your face every single minute of the day.

Honestly, don’t do it. If you must live in a capital city on an extremely limited budget - choose Edinburgh. You can walk everywhere, everything feels less stressful, Hyde Park can’t hold a candle to Holyrood Park and Arthur’s Seat. It always feels as if a greater proportion of available fun is free or almost free.

Or find a way to escape England. The inequality here is beyond shameful and makes for a very poor quality of life for the majority.

London is full of social housing, and if you look at a voting map, you will see this reflected as it's mostly a Labour city.

I live in social housing. It's not an estate but a nice little road in central/west. We could do with an extra bedroom and I expect we will wait for years, and might not get transferred at all.

But... our reasonable rent does allow us a fairly decent standard of living. We'd never ever be able to afford to buy.

I suspect there are quite a few like us. It's not all extremes, though I appreciate there is a massive wealth gap between richest and poorest. It totally disgusts me to see all the empty homes bought as investments.

I don’t work and live in London my child is disabled before anyone comments. I don’t live in a nice area though London is full of not so nice areas we don’t all live in Kensington.

Lots of people receive housing benefit but very few private rentals will accept. And if you are evicted them temporary housing can be awful.
There is lots of social housing and if you are lucky enough to get social housing then you can live a lovely life in London. Social housing isn't all high rise flats, lots of streets have social housing houses.
One of my colleagues at work claims some UC and lives in a lovely two bed social housing flat. She did live for years in a one bed with her son before they were rehoused. She does go to museums and art galleries and the theatre. Museums and art galleries are free and you can often get last minute theatre tickets for £5.

I don’t live in a high rise though I live in a house on a nice quiet street of only 8 houses. Waiting list for council in my area is you have to live in the borough for 5 years before you can join then you are looking at 10 years minimum but my council is no longer housing those that aren’t priority so this is only for priority applicants. Everyone else is advised to do a mutual exchange.

Thanks for the replies. @SpinningFloppa absolutely no judgement here 💐. Can I ask roughly how much cheaper social housing rents are than private rental? I thought there was a new law to stop landlords discriminating against housing benefit recipients?

Council & housing association rents are vastly cheaper than private rentals. I think a social housing rent for a two bed flat where I live is about £600 & private rent about 2k.

Mine is £400 pcm just looked at the same in my area and it would be £400 (minimum) per week for private.

I have no idea what law you are referring to. Many banks and building societies do not allow rent to be paid for by housing benefit.

A law came through in recent years that’s stopped landlords/estate agents from saying, ‘We do not accept people on DSS’ when advertising a property. So legally they’re no longer to put that on an advertisement but in reality, they still don’t rent to those on benefits!

Some do but you have to find the right landlord as it’s very difficult

The law related to advertising, not renting.

And conversely, landlords appearing keen to accept people in receipt of benefits may well be looking for tenants they can exploit or house in unacceptable conditions.

The only way I could afford to live in London on a low income (I have health issues so work part-time only) was because I had been able to buy a stake in a shared-ownership flat years ago.

I assume most people on benefits/low incomes are in some form of social housing or sharing a home with housemates/flatmates.

Because private renting in now extortionate especially in London and landlords/agents don't want to take on people on benefits (discriminatory of course but they always find a way around it).

I left London recently after 30 years because I had enough of the noise, pollution and poor quality of life/standards of living. Even if I had an affordable roof over my head I still lived in a supposedly ''regenerated'' part of London where there were a lot of social issues and anti-social behaviour.

I would not move into the city if you are on a low income/benefits.

Living on a low income was fine in the 90s for example but now London is a playground for the wealthy.

If you want big-ish city life there are better alternative.

Edinburgh is expensive too but you might like Glasgow, Manchester, Bristol, Liverpool and so on.

The lower and working class get benefits, the upper middle class can afford it so really it's just the middle and upper end working class that are priced out. The ones on household income of 50-150k. They live in other towns and pay 5k a year for the train.

We live in London on a low income and it’s a shit quality of life. We live on an awful estate in a horrible area in a tiny flat with our children. Our only saving grace is we have a car and get out as much as we can. That’s when I finally feel peace. I wouldn’t recommend London unless you have money, can afford to live in a nice area or don’t care about your quality of life.

We are in the middle of your two extremes. We are on a low income (just above the UC cut-off) but bought our house 20 years ago so have a low mortgage payment and a higher disposable income than many. We couldn't afford to buy anything nowadays.

We very rarely go to the theatre or eat out. We pack a lunch and go to the free museums and parks with the kids, and maybe buy a coffee or ice cream. It costs me £11 to get into zone 1 which I know is a lot of money to some families who might not even have the time or energy either.

Social housing may as well not exist where I live.

We have a household income between 50-150k and live a lovely life in London.

Did I say the law related to renting? No. You said you didn’t know what law the OP was speaking about so all I did was tell you. There’s clearly a misunderstanding on the law on OP’s part but you don’t need to have attitude when responding. My God I should have just kept my mouth shut

Forgot to say, we work locally, and walk/quick drive in.

The people I know here who seem to be doing OK even on average incomes and live in lovely areas are slightly older and bought their homes 20-30 years ago when it was still possible to buy somewhere nice at a reasonable price. The rest of us live on the outskirts and spend an hour or more commuting to work and everywhere else really. I was able to buy because one of my parents died when I was young and left me money but I'm now stuck living in my current home in zone 4 - I couldn't even afford a 1 bed flat more centrally. I've considered leaving London but currently I have more opportunities here career-wise.

London is very hard for poor people. Don't move. Move to a nearby county to take advantage of what London has to offer in terms of arts and culture. Milton Keynes / Luton / Buckinghamshire. Although, you need to research these areas well too. There are horrible areas and schools in London. It costs a lot to live a safe and normal life to say what it does in the Midlands or further up north. Also, the poorer areas have a lot of pollution. Even Greater London has the same issues. We are renting in St. Albans at the moment. Looking to move to the Surrey area. This is as near to London I am prepared to live unless I was a multi millionaire. It is more multicultural which is good for me anyway and it has more to offer in terms of private schools. I was asking my husband how do low wage people survive London, he said the cleaners, cooks, admin staff at his workplace tend to live in Greater London, South London, Kent. No idea what life is like for them on a day to day basis. The travel costs - I can't imagine much is left over at the end of the month. A distance cousin was paying £4k a month in rent to live in the borough of Chelsea to live in a nice area and be by what she believed people like herself, luckily she came to her senses and moved to Guildford. Stupid rent to live in London. If you can't afford it don't do it.

I lived in London as a single mum on benefits in the 2000s. I'm disabled so got extra money which helped, and my DD was also eventually diagnosed with SN so I also got extra benefits for her. We were prioritised for a council flat as I had social workers involved, so waited about 7 months before getting one, about 7 mins walk to a zone 1 station, so travel costs were minimal. It was a 2 bed flat for me and my DD, so it wasnt big but not overcrowded. Bills were low due to being in a flat, and got 50% off water bills due to disability.

We ended up going to the theatre quite a bit as there was a scheme where disadvaged families could get tickets for free or heavily discounted. Went to the galleries and museums a lot, and made the most of free admission for carers in certain venues including cinema and theme parks. Cheap swimming and other leisure centre activities as they did a cheaper rate for people on benefits. Used to eat out using Tesco vouchers. I'd shop around a lot for groceries and batch cook as I had that free time during school hours.

Would be a lot harder without the help from social housing, being busy working long hours and none of the discounted rates. Plus the benefits system is harder now (am still getting disability benefits but not reliant on means-tested benefits now). Not sure I'd advise anyone to move here, if on a low income.

Thanks for all of the replies. It seems London is only a great place to live if you have money 🥺

London is massive. I lived centrally in my 20s on a low salary but made it work through flat shares. Now I live in zone, with a mortgage, and can still get easily to the eating / drinking / cultural stuff I want to go to.

Finding this thread strange given that London is more that central.

Zone 5*