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?

standupandbecounted - looks like we all agree re building more homes, esp social housing.

When we had rent controls the supply of rented property all but dried up, I remember those days, just. No one would let because your tenant wa there fore life and REnt Act rents were a derisory pitatance £5 a week for life for the next 70 years kind of thing. It didn't work at all. The assured shorthold (I remember when it came out) has been a tremendous success because now you can rent and be allowed by law but only after a court order to get tenants out. It has meant the suppyl of private housing to rent has increased massively which has benefited many people.

As the recession eases there will be more jobs and then it will be easier to ensure that benefits are worse and that work really does pay.

Granted we all agree re building more homes and social housing. But this government isn't doing enough in this respect. The previous Labour government didn't either. It seems to me that politicians of all parties are not listening to the concerns of the people on housing. I hope you are right about rents comoing down or else I am well and truly screwed, working or not. I am more disappointed with Labour tbh. I have always voted Labour but I feel they abandoned the working classes where housing was concerned.

Standupandbecounted. Actually I think having one child in a 1 bed flat is OK. Not ideal but OK. However my point was that if you had 2-3 more children the council is obliged to do something.

Why should people who have more and more children without any visble means of supporting them be rewarded with more and more. My mother lives in Ealing - a couple of roads away from the Afghan family with 6 kids who were living in a house costing the council £10k per MONTH. My mother who has worked all her life and doesnt owe a penny to anyone feels somewhat agrieved

Yes Rocky that's not fair. But the rest of us are getting a raw deal and it's never highlighted in the media. All I want is security of tenure,decent housing, and an affordable rent. I don't think that's unreasonable but bit seems impossible to attain.

"All I want is security of tenure,decent housing, and an affordable rent. "

I'm sure many people who pay their rent entirely out of their own earnings want the same!

...unless I have more kids.

Read the thread violethill I have already complained on their behalf!

So what do you think the answer is then? Tax the workers even more, so that not only are they paying 100% of their own rent/council tax/bills out of their own pocket, but they're also subsidising other people's??

The trouble is, the building programmes of low-cost and social housing haven't been able to keep up with the massive population rise, and the fact that many (I suspect most) arrivals to this country in the last 10 years have been hugely reliant on social housing and/or private rental paid for largely or wholly from HB.

Although I think Maggie did many brilliant things, I think in retrospect selling off the council housing stock was a poor idea. Having said that, it gave many hundreds of thousands of WC people social mobility and the chance to be financially independent, so it's a bit of a double edged sword.

All I want is security of tenure,decent housing, and an affordable rent.

Hear hear.

I wonder if we can put the kids out to work to get it? Because 2 able-bodied, hard working adults can't do that in this country. And it's nothing to do with how many hours you work or how many children you have, not for the working bunch, it isn't. People talk about the horror of forced sterilisation and how there's no getting around how crowded we are in this country - perhaps that's the overall plan - force the working classes so far onto the grindstone that they think they're being "smart" by putting off children, or only having one or two despite desperately wanting more. I know that's our position. Self-imposed population control. What a shame others on benefits and various top ups don't have the same motivation or constraints!

The trouble with highlighting families like your mums Afghans Rocky is that they may have had large families when they arrived. Now I'm not defending them being put in very plush or very expensive accommodation for a second, but they do have to be put somewhere especially if they are asylum seekers. I think the focus should be on the people who continue to have children they know damn well they have no room for in their existing home, and no means of supporting. Although I'm sure there are a disproportionate number of immigrant/asylum families who are guilty of this, as culturally they have a penchant for very large families.

I heard a labour MP (Hazel Blears for Salford I think?) saying how terribly unfair it was that the new rules for HB would disproportionately affect many of her Pakistini constituents, because many of them like to have 6 or 7 children.

Well, tough. In Britain we consider ourselves really quite lucky if we can afford to support two or three. Tell your constituents they'll need to get with the programme from now on Hazel.

Fellatio - I take your point but none of them work and they fall into this rule whereby at certain ages children are not required to share rooms with brothers/sisters etc hence the very large house which WE are paying for.

Also agree with the view that you have as many children as YOU can afford. We are a very very tolerant nation. But methinks we have gone too far now..

standupandbecounted - agree with you totally re the politics of it - I'd have expected it of the Tories, but I was very disappointed by 'no more boom and bust' Labour - not a surprise, really, given that Tony Blair has a huge portfolio of BTL properties, and the expense scandal laid bare the very mercenary reasons so many MPs had no interest in helping improve tenants' rights, build more properties, reduce rents or make housing affordable for families. Their only solution to the fact that no-one could rely on a pension was to encourage the mad scramble for second, third, fourth BTL properties, to ensure that mortgage lending rules were relaxed so far that anyone with a pulse could lie to borrow way more than a property was worth or than they could ever reasonably repay, and then that way, keep the property bubble -based economy perpetually inflated.

Obviously, like all Ponzi schemes, it was due to run out of money soon - buggered up the economy, as it was always going to...

Great for those able to make hundreds of thousands off the back of the property bubble. Shit for ordinary working families, like yours or mine, forced to work all hours to pay the rent somewhere, long commutes, crap housing. :(

Better than :(

Xenia - sorry, but that analysis doesn't hold water - I remember renting perfectly happily before the laws were changed - it wasn't 'impossible' to find places to rent - they were just a damn sight cheaper. Don't forget a far larger proportion of the population used to rent - it was a much bigger market and people weren't all homeless. Obviously, there was a bigger range of social housing, as it hadn't all been sold off.

Also, how do you explain most other European countries? Germany, say, doesn't seem to suffer from a dire shortage of rented property just because it has good tenancy rights and low rents.

It would discourage the short-term chancers, yes. But frankly, as a renter, the less of them we have as landlords, the better. Any houses not bought to rent wouldn't just magically disappear - they'd become occupied by owners, instead, meaning one less family needing to rent.

we really can't compare ourselves with many other european countries (except germany) as they simply aren't as overcrowded as the UK, so have far less pressure on housing.

the theory of capitalism is that eventually supply & demand will even out - it may take a generation, but if people have to live in a house with their grandparents, when they grow up they are likely to have fewer children of their own in order to avoid overcrowding. (not sure i agree that the theory plays out in practice, or that it is ethical to let it)

if you look up the pop. figures for different countries, it is quite scary how crowded the UK is.

here

ok, nowhere near as crowded as gibraltar, but noticeably more so than germany (who are next on the list).

It was much harder to rend when we had rent controls. I remember trying to find somewhere. Assured shortholds freed the letting market and meant that suddenly it existed in a way that it rarely did before 1980 or whenever shortholds came in.

Anyway we certainly cannot afford to continue subsidising the housing needs of those on low incomes anymore and limiting HB to £20,800 a year is hardly going to make people sleep in tents or with their granny. It remains tremendously generous. There is no obligation on the state to do anything and we tax payers owe no one anything. Instead if we can afford it then we may provide for the housing needs according to what the country can afford. The gravy train has now stopped and people may have to start providing for themselves rather than relying on the beneficence of the state. Try my 2 weeks holiday to have babies and then back to full time work. Try working all day and then diong a second job all night. All those things are possible for many of us from time to time over our lives.

'As the recession eases there will be more jobs and then it will be easier to ensure that benefits are worse and that work really does pay.

'

Long term perhaps.

But teh figures pout today show that the reverse is happening- and analysts are talking about fears of a 'jobless recovery', and that the hoped for intake into private sector to cover public sector losses isn't materialising.

Long term matters but when it comes to homelessness etc it's very much a crisis management role, and anything that pushes up job losses whilst making some landlords feel HB claimants are a bad risk is going to have a bad effect on people's basic shelter needs.

' There is no obligation on the state to do anything and we tax payers owe no one anything.

That's an attitude I do not understand.

You work for all your life- as you do Xenia indeed- and pay a % of youre wages in NI to cover this sort of thing.

Now, if I paid into a private insurance of any kind, as indeed most of us do I am sure, and when I needed to make a claim they said 'there is no obligation on us to pay' we would all be up in arms about our contributions, no?

The p[art top up we have in no way matches anything like what we have paid in over 20 years employment, so whilst i think we have a moral obligation to try everything we can to avoid a need to claim, I also think we have an entitlement, yes.

And I do happen to believe that we have a moral responsibility to support the most vulnerable who cannot pay into the system.

Many landlords already will not take on HB claimants anyway as it is which is what you would expect.

As for the obligations of the state - what is the state? It is simply what a particular countries decides to do by its rules and will of the people or whatever. Most of us believe in some form of welfare state but we cannot afford what we have had or the level of generosity within it which has led to distortions so that the average full time working family is in no better off a position than some people on benefits.

The national insurance fund was always a lie and a con as there is no fund at all. They should simply merge NI and tax and be done with it. The sttaet also has the right to change the rules, to alter pension tax laws, to increase or decrease tax and add or reduce benefits. I am just stating facts.

We have a duty to ensure people don't go hungry and are fed in my view and I am sure most people in the UK support that but that does not have to be in the form it is currently done and in ways which means that those who work hard are no better off than those who don't.

I do think £20k HB when many working families live on £20k never mind pay rent out of it, is too generous but it's the new cap and if we cn afford it going forward I imagine it will stay.

But Sancti 'the most vulnerable' are actually a pretty small bunch. The vast majority of people who do not pay into the system for years and years on end, perfectly physically and mentally capable of doing so - at least most of the time, throughout their adult lives.

We have allowed a situation to develop where people can opt out of work if the pay/hours/job description don't appeal to them. We have allowed a situation to develop where people can have as many children as they like, in the most inappropriate of circumstances, without having to take any financial responsibility for them whatsoever. We actually pay them more money the more they have! And give them a bigger better house! Why on earth would they worry about whether they can afford it? hmm]

YABU, you get a nice flat fully paid for for you and your children in London with doing nothing in return, therefor those that work see that they work not only to pay for their own home but also the homes of others who dont support themselves - many by choice. Not to mention all the other benefits that come with children whilst not working.

At least those on HB will be paying some tax and many will usually move jobs, get pay rises etc and become less dependant on benefits or come off them.

We should protect those that cannot physically work but not support those that choose not too - perhaps then when we return to a true welfare state those on benefits will not be seen as they are now.

Few points, not necessarily related to each other:

I hate the 'I have to rent because I can't afford to buy' argument. In lots of cases paying a mortgage is cheaper than paying rent. There are of course other benefits to renting such as not having to maintain the property or being able to move for work etc.
Or maybe buying would mean people have to miss out on other benefits...

DH and I can't even think about having more children because we can't afford to.

I used to manage several foreign students in London. Their visas only allow them to work 20hrs a wk and they can't claim HB. They manage because they have to, usually by house sharing.
I also found that people not claiming anything were always asking for overtime, whereas the people whoi knew the roof over their head was paid for anyway didn't bother.

BTW - I'm not blaming people claiming HB. If its available you'd be mad not to take it. However, the SYSTEM is wrong.

So one partner in a family can't work due to disability. Other partner works FT. Earns £16K (above average wage for town). Rent for a 2-bed terrace is the same as the average wage for the town!

And if current house prices are 14 times the workers income...who the HELL will give them a mortgage? NOT EVERYONE CAN AFFORD TO BUY.

Without HB, my family would be homeless.

Rent caps on what private Landlords could charge would have been so much more effective and less likely to cause extra homelessness that the HB cap. But it will never happen because MP's and law-makers are the very people that profit from the current rules, and they also do not give two figs about the plight of low-paid workers that rely on HB to get ANY accommodation.

Mind you - I am not saying that LL's should have the rent lowered to the extent that it was in 1988 when the old rent act was repealed, or that they should be forced to provide a home for life, but there should be a middle ground. Why can't the Government build more social housing to house low-paid workers, at a cost that the workers could afford? That might solve the whole issue.

'I hate the 'I have to rent because I can't afford to buy' argument. In lots of cases paying a mortgage is cheaper than paying rent. '

Me, too! So go ahead and hand me 20% deposit and fees, which totals tens of thousands of pounds in many areas, and tell me how a person on £16K goes about saving that kind of money whilst paying a private rent and all the other costs of living, then come back and tell me 'I have to rent because I can't afford to buy' is just an option for the lazy and feckless.

Because that's got to be one of the most fecking ignorant things I've read in a long time.

People can move to areas where rents are cheaper though and houses are cheaper. People who don't get state benefits have to make choices like that all the time, even working away from their families, mothers as well as children but the poor have this total insulation from all these realities because the squeezed middle has been persuaded to pay for their life of idleness. No more... one hopes.