to question the cut in housing benefits for under occupying council tenants?

[Liketochat1]

In April next year the government are cutting housing benefits to working age council tenants who have more bedrooms than they need. They will be offered alternative accommodation of an appropriate size with no reduction in housing benefit as an alternative.
Is it fair to change the current system like this? To ask people to leave their homes and possibly the area in which they live? To expect siblings of the same gender to share a room?
Do you think it will be extended to include oaps who occupy properties which are too big for them. Should it?

Yes Birds a large amount of council properties are an absolute state and on a meagre benefits income you can not afford to sort it out, it would take years and years. I had a council flat when I was 18 and it was a god damn shit hole with a load of piss heads living in the block. I live in a nice private rented 2 bedroom now which I am happy with, its a decent house with a good sized garden and the landlord is a family friend of DP.

We would never have got a council house in time for the baby coming in August and living in a B n B was not acceptable to me (did it at 16, was in a really really dodgy area, owner was a perv who was about 70 and talked to my tits, creepy!) so was lucky we landed this private rent really or we'd be on our arses (they accept pets aswell! :D)

sometimes smaller places are more rent than bigger. doesn't make sense but its a fact.

also, to move you have to pay a deposit of a month or so rent out of your own pocket. if youre already struggling with the BT how the hell are we supposed to conjure up a whole months rent? sell your kidneys? FFS

OAP's are not included because although they are the ones most likely to be hogging huge, multiple bedroom family homes with only one or two people now living there, they are also the ones most likely to vote Tory. If this was really about freeing up homes then it would include OAP's and raise the rent to market levels when there are people living in social housing earning £50k+. Social housing was meant to be for the poor and vulnerable, not as a way of making easy money (I'm talking Right to Buy and then renting out said council home for £££) or living beyond your needs.

This is a Zombie thread.

""Social housing was meant to be for the poor and vulnerable, ""

But just to answer that, it wasn't.

Housing was part of the whole new Welfare State, after WW2.

The idea was that everyone would have a decent standard of living, this included knocking down Slum housing.

In London, bombed houses needed replacing.

Up North, Slum clearance was the main reason.

Social housing had the aim to have Doctors and Bus Drivers living in the same community. To keep up the spirit of pulling together during the war.

In truth, the materials and money wasn't available for all that was planned, that's why dental services were scaled back.

It was Thatchers government that changed the whole housing structure.

The ironic thing is that we know taking housing stick away by selling off Social housing doesn't work to ease any issue, yet all the now impossible to rent three bed houses in my area are going under the "own place" scheme.

So they will be sold, to people who in a years time may not have jobs and when they are repossessed, By to Let LL will double the rent and rent them back to people in insecure/lower paid employment, EU immigrants, or HB claimants.

Once again Tory policy will save the country nothing and will do nothing to create stable communities.

I have a very elderly and frail neighbour next door. He's occupying only downstairs room (its his bedroom and living room at the same time) as he cannot get upstairs. But relocating him (unless to a care home) would be way too difficult.

You can't judge home owners who have spare rooms as the same as tenants who do. Owners have bought and paid for those rooms and already pay council tax. An increase of council tax would be like trying to punish people for affording their homes?

This ^^ from Birdsgottafly needs to be repeated, as it encapsulates the insiduous way the Thatcher government changed the perception of social housing (e.g low cost housing) from a basic need, to "property" (e.g housing being a privilege)

It was never about emergency shelter for the destitute. Social housing was about decent housing for ALL. The intention was never sink estates, it was a social mix, community. And it really was like that. In the 70's and early 80's on my GP's estate , everyone had a job, everyone went to Spain on their holidays, most families ran one car. it wasn't considered shameful, or grasping, to live in a council house. Getting one wasn't a race to the bottom-just a sensible economic choice for many many people.
And council houses are not "free" as some on here seem to think! We are now in a situation where people say things like "why should they get "free" housing, if they are earning 20k a year?"
You still pay rent in council houses just have cheaper rent than private. I earn an OK wage, not great, but OK. If I lived in social housing, my rent would be around 25% of my families gross income, which is a lot, but I am the only adult in my house. If I were in a couple it would be better, obviously.
In my private house it is more like 40 % of our families income, just on rent, which is nuts, and means I can't save at all, which means I have no safety net, which means if I lose my job I am straight onto welfare. How can this be a good situation?

Sorry to keep feeding the Zombie!