AIBU to hate the line "why should people on housing benefit live in homes that working people can't afford?"

[standupandbecounted]

"Why should people on housing benefit live in houses that working people could not afford?"

I keep seeing this line being thrown about in the media. Along with stories about families, usually with an average of eight kids, claiming a shocking level of housing benefit.The government is going to cap housing benefit to prevent this. Reasonable, but not the whole story.
A a less publicised proposal is to drop the level of Local Housing Allowance(LHA) from the 50th centile to the 30th centile.Local housing allowance is currently set at the median-middle value- of private rents in your local area. In my area the LHA is nowhere near the proposed cap. The maximum I can claim for a 2 bedroom property (I have 2 kids) is 126.92 per week. For a three bedroom it is £150 per week. Shelter have estimate that the average loss for a for a two bedroom tenant in my area will be £12 per week.( I assume this is based on predicted rent levels)
Loss per area here

I am renting a two bedroom flat for myself and two children, aged 18 months and 5. There is no outdoor space, it is not large and not in an exclusive area. The soundproofing is poor and the tenants upstairs are fond of partying way into the early hours. Hardly luxury housing that working people can't afford. I believe this myth about HB claimants living in the best properties does not represent the reality for the majority of us. I have tried to find somewhere better but most landlords will not take HB or children. I have put my name down on the waiting list for council housing but have been awarded thr lowest priority level. I will never get one with that banding.

The thing that upsets me most is the "working people" bit, a lot of HB claimants ARE working people! Housing benefit is also available to people who don't earn enough to cover their rent. Most low income people cannot access council housing anymore. They are forced to rent on the private market, where rents are to high to be affordable on low incomes. This is the case in most areas, not just London.

So, AIBU to feel angry that people on housing benefit are being misrepresented and subjected to unfair cuts?

Do you not get HB then?

But the big question is, how do you pitch the balance? How do you provide that security, decent, standard of living to those who genuinely need welfare, while maintaining the motivation for people to get off benefits, and to strive to support themselves and their families independently?

It's social housing, that is the answer plain and simple and only for your use until you are back on your feet or it meets your needs ie house while the children are young and then downsize afterwards.
But of course that idea isn't liked either.

And yes, you say people should be happier with their lot - well, that's the whole point of the thread is it not? Many people who for whatever reason as reliant wholly or partially on HB wet they are not happy with their lot, and feel entitled to more.

I remember a thread on here from a girl in a two bed house (single mum, very young, two young children, no job) complaining because her house was too small, she wasn;t considered a priority for a bigger one. Her boy and girl had to share a bedroom, and her living room was too small. Apprently when she stretched her legs out from the sofa she could touch the fireplace with her feet.

violethill again you are right.

The political party that came up with the answer would be in power for years.

In my view the only way to do it is to make benefits simply not a long term option either financially or practically. Again this has to discount those whose only options are benefits eg carers/sick/disabled.

I'm not sure if I'm wrong or not but I believe in the US you can only claim some kind of Child benefits for the first 2 years, the amount and time decreases with each subsequent child and after a certain number of children you can't claim at all. It means that people from all walks of life only have the children that they can afford to have.

The problem is this whole thing is not just about benefits. It is also about education and being educated to a point where you can get a job and want to do well in it.

I still remember reading an article in the Times a few years ago where the author had been to some town where there was the highest number of benefits claimants in the country. The reporter said that the vast majority of young people said they would turn to crime over getting a job if they lost their benefits. The rest said they would have to leave the area to get a job and that they would rather do that than be stuck on the dole in their home town.

No mamatomany it is considered inhumane and demeaning to ask someone to move on from a three bed house once they cease to need three beds! Well, maybe that's fine if they want to start paying the market rate for a three bed house, but while they are benefitting from a heavily subsidised and freely maintained council property that is needed by a bigger family, a private landlord somewhere is benefitting from that family's need and the state is paying an artificially inflated private market rate, beaucse they have no choice.

Common courtesy ????

There is no child benefit in the US. What there is is a tax deduction. A dependent child reduces your overall taxable income, in the form of a deduction.

Sorry Riven. I should have done my homework before I posted. I had remembered it incorrectly.

I meant this (sorry for the wikipedia link!)

You can only claim for 60 months in your life time and the focus is on getting you off benefits and back into work. Unmarried minor (under 18? 21?) parents must live with a parent or guardian.

sorry, sorry... ballsed up regarding the US child benefits.

What? You expect people who own their own homes to live somewhere smaller for others to get on the ladder? Really? What if you live in a two bed but it's massive? Or a four bed and it's tiny? How would that work?

People that are on benefits are reliant and therefore answerable for their housing costs, can't see that anyone else is.

And each child is a deduction so long as they are your dependent.

There is also, outside of what is left in a select few large cities, very little 'council' housing.

What there is is Section 8. You rent privately as a Section 8 tenant and get a rent reduction the landlord claims back from the government, with a requirement that developments over a certain size take a certain percentage of Section 8 tenants.

Because private renting over there is mostly very different from here.

For one, flat developments tend to be much larger, spread over more space, and owned by huge corporations, which are managed by huge property management companies.

Even small buildings of flats are often owned by a company and managed by a property management company.

Buy-to-let by individuals is strongly discoured by the tax laws there.

It's also more secure on the whole. It can be tricky, outside of corporate apartments, to get a six-month lease.

Most are 12 months.

Then they come up for renewal, usually with a small rent increase, and that's that.

You can pretty much stay as long as you want.

Not as much stigma about renting, either.

I agree with downsizing in council properties.
I do think the coalitions plans are misguided.They say they are going to review new tenants every two years. This won't reduce the housing crisis as so few properties are becoming available to new tenants.
They are hiding away from the fact that there needs to be a massive social housing building programme.IMHO because funding it would involve some unpopular decisions as to who would foot the bill.The Conservative party is more concerned with the interests of obscenely wealthy people who want to avoid paying more tax than the good of the county as a whole. They know better than to tax the middle classes who already have a high tax burden. Labour let the housing crisis fester because they were a mix of incompetent, self serving and corrupt. It's not ignorance that prevents a lot of poor people voting,it's that no political party represents their interests any more.

So Riven, sorry to be nosey and by all means avoid/skirt round the question if you like, but in your (highly unusual) situation, where you need 24 hour caring available for DD, you yourself are incapacitated and DH works very much sporadically part-time (IIRC) but you have a mortgage, how does the social security system divvy up what you are entitled to, to keep you in your own home rather than lose it and go into rented and on HB? Are you expected to pay your mortgage out of what you get in income support? Is there some mortage HB by another name?

I know if you lose your job your mortgage is paid for you, but only if you have minimal savings and only if your mortgage is below a certain amount, and only for a limited time, is that not right? (obviously I think that applies to run-of-the-mill situations not like yours.)

Is that the USA expat?

That's a very socialist argument -that I should be forced to sell a house I worked hard to own because my oldest child has left home so now I have a spare bed room (although two of the children so I suppose perhaps it wouldn't be spare).

Fair enough if it's state housing - that is there in times of need and there are too many people in council houses for life who have a lot of money and have a bigger house than they need but not for private housing. People should be able to keep the fruits of their labour otherwise they won't bother to labour. the 50%+ tax rate is already stopping many people I know making much extra effort. When more than half geso to the state then tipping poit is reached and you just put your feet up rather than work hard so that most of what you earn goes to benefit claimants and bribes to by the MoD in Germany and over priced or is it underpriced weapons orders.

Oh now I see it is. Do you think the US welfare and housing system is better expat? If it is, what can we learn from it?

Yes, standup. That's why I always find it really ridiculous when British try to copy American policies over here. The housing system works very differently, for the most part.

So expat that sounds like the housing associations we have here, but on a much larger scale, and run as profit-making enterprises but with strict government regulation. Sounds like quite a good model to me.

I think there will be a massive building program, it's the only way to stop people sleeping under bridges.
The council here will buy your house if you are going to be repossessed under certain circumstances ie you've not remortgaged and for the original price not the inflated one so you'd make no profit but it would be rented back to you so you could stay in your home.

I have no experience of the welfare system over there, standup. It also varies very much by state, so it's harder to generalise.

The system of renting is very different because teh country has a much larger geographical area.

As a result, outside of cities like NYC, San Fran, places like that, there's more space for large, campus-style 'apartment complexes' or two or three stories.

It's just not the same so it's ridiculous to try to model policies here on the back of them.

I wouldn't go with Rivens argument but I would question the need for two homes.In a country where there is a shortage of housing and space, I don't see the need for a holiday home.

If Riven's DH didn't work she'd get her mortgage paid indefinitely up to £200k interest only, i've often wondered why her DH bothers working under the current scheme but am glad they do