if you voted for the Tories, you should feel personally responsible when you see homeless people on the streets ...

[aufaniae]

...once their policies start to bite.

They want to removing housing benefit for under 25s, many of whom have children. Just one of their policies which will drive people into homelessness.

I thought this was meant to be a civilised country. If the safety net is removed, many people including children will fall through it, some of them ending up on the streets.

How can anyone support that?

[aufaniae]

Hope to see you all at the protest on the 20th afuturethatworks.org/

[aufaniae]

"rent is too high, that needs downward pressure".

Agreed.

What I don't agree on is that the "downward pressure" should be threatening hundreds of thousands of people - including children - with homelessness.

That's absolutely, completely immoral IMO.

[HomelessMummy]

Exactly. The HB cap doesn't really effect rents much at the moment.

Families are either moving to smaller properties or becoming homeless and entering the social housing system - as predicted. The government knew it would happen. But they want to show their loyal supporters where they will be prepared to cut money.

And once again they are being warned. And once again they are ignoring it.

[aufaniae]

It's not true that rents are falling. In some areas they are but overall rents are rising

Most recent:

Rents in England and Wales rise, says survey

"Average rents in England and Wales have increased by 2.9 per cent, according to an estate agency network.

LSL Property Services? buy to let index shows the average rent in July was £725 a month, an increase of 2.9 per cent compared to July last year and a one per cent increase on the previous month.

London, the south east and the west Midlands saw the biggest annual increases, of 4.8 per cent, 4 per cent and 3.5 per cent respectively, while rents fell in the east Midlands and the south west."

Earlier this year:

"Rents rise again despite more tenants falling into the red

"The North West and the East of England saw the biggest rent rises in April, of 1.3% and 1.1% respectively. London rents rose 0.7% last month to an average of £1,032 per month, 46% higher than the national average.

Wales saw rent drop the most, down 1.3% compared with March."

[HomelessMummy]

Depends on the area actually Mosmon - shelter just reported an overall rise for last quarter though.

Generally, if it's a high demand area such as where I live then the rents aren't dropping and in some cases are rising. Because people can't buy due to lending not being great right now.

[Mosman]

No they are coming down with the whole people cannot paying with what they haven't got thing going on.

[BoulevardOfBrokenSleep]

Aren't rents going up at the minute? With the whole credit crunch, no more easy-to-get mortgages thing?

[Mosman]

If they are working and cannot manage without housing benefits, rent us too high, that needs downward pressure which is already happening.

[aufaniae]

The vast majority of people claiming HB are working, not "3rd generation never worked, no use to anyone, commuting low level crime"

Making them and their children homeless will help how, exactly?

[MiniTheMinx]

Excellent points HoneyMurcott especially in relation to what marriedinwhite has to say "welfare state has allowed that to be perpetuated and has bred a strata of society where the under 25s have never lived in a community where work and responsibility are the norm" who appears to have not lived through or seen first hand the effects of the last Tory government.

In a sense you are both correct but what married seems to have completely ignored is the fact that people are not born lacking some genetic material that strips the "ambition or work" characteristic out of them. The political class stripped this from them under thatcher. There are areas of the UK where generations have not worked, have few role models except X factor....(but who makes money from x facter?) Thatcher instituted housing and benefits policy after she deregulated and disempowered labour, bashing the unions and then bashing the workers who were later made unemployed by her own policies. That was driven by ideaology just as this Tory government are now.

Married in white, a name that say's it all, obviously upholds the patriarchal view that women are mere chattels to the property owing male class, her own class, a class of rich white knob ends. And found out to her own dismay that these rich men are bastards. Too right but she is unable to see that single working class young women have never had any such allusions about her working class male counterpart, aware of the fact that he is now so beaten down by his rich male counterpart....he can no longer keep the wolf from the door or the coats on their backs. That is why so many young working class women do not get married.

[Mosman]

Yes low paid workers are necessary, 3rd generation never worked, no use to anyone, commuting low level crime needs stamping out, they never will but they should try.

[BoulevardOfBrokenSleep]

Can I just check that the 'no breeding for the poor' posse understand that our economic system will always require a pool of low-paid workers, and a certain level of unemployment?

You're acting like the low-paid are morally failing, whereas they're a necessary part of the system. And they'll always be there. But they're not allowed to have kids?

[Mosman]

Nobody objected to the first time buyers between 2000 and 2007 being used as pawns to bolster the pension pots of those Gordon brown had raided.

[marriedinwhite]

Minitheminx. What utter drivel. The welfare state has taken away all vestiges of personal responsibility. Having a baby when one does not have the means to support it and to do so willingly is not about being oppressed by others it is about oppressing oneself and the welfare state has allowed that to be perpetuated and has bred a strata of society where the under 25s have never lived in a community where work and responsibility are the norm. It is not the rich who created that it was created by the left.

If my children are ever in a vulnerable situation I (and my rich bastard of a dh as you would view him) who will look after them and expect to look after them. That is because as decent hard working peoples we brought them into the world with forethought and because we were prepared to takes responsibility for them. That is something that needs to happen more. It is what all our rich middle class friends do. What you are saying is actually that women and the poor are not capable of that and needs to be supported by the state. IMO if they aren't capable of that then the state should not be facilitating them to have perpetual children in a workless environment.

[HomelessMummy]

I agree mosman. HB rates haven't helped but they are capped or being capped so you might start to see them coming down now. But in the high demand areas the cap is just forcing HB people out.

I hope you get your house let soon. And I'm glad you're open to HB people. We aren't all alcoholic scum with seventeen kids and a staffie :)

[nonameslefttouse]

Throwing money at a problem has not solved anything, in fact it has made problems far worse, no need to take responsibility for own actions and the sense of entitlement is mind blowing I deal with everyday. The Country has no money cuts have to be made its a balancing act. As for the all Thatcher drivel please have a look at the state this country was in prior to May 1979 Labour had done the same thing spent up got the country up the creek and the nasty party had to clear up the mess, history repeating really!

[aufaniae]

Mosman the solution to that is positive measures, such as building social housing, requiring developers to include affordable units in new housing developments (a requirement the Tories have just removed) and possibly rent caps.

The solution is not to withdraw the safety net from those who need it.

What you seem to be suggesting is that by cutting the number of people on HB, it will drive the rents down. These are real people we're talking about who will lose their homes! Treating real people as pawns in a supply-demand equation when it's their homes they will lose is totally imoral IMO, especially when there are so many more positive options which would address the issue.

[Mosman]

I thought you might say that, we can all only speak from experience and mine is that HB pushes up rents for all who h makes buy to let attractive and inflates house prices none of which is good for the economy or families in the long term

[HomelessMummy]

Mosmon - I promise you you are in the minority there.


And very good points mini - the welfare bill will look a little reduced. Because the actual burden will fall to the local authority. In some places it is 4 times the average HB rate to house a homeless family in temporary or emergency housing - sometimes for months.


What is wrong is that the majority of people on HB will suffer for this. The government will get to crow that they are improving the people or some such crap. That they are fixing broken Britain and Tory supporters will be able to gleefully sneer "that'll teach the workshy bastards" without actually caring who it is really effecting.

That's what scares me. That the whole thing is geared towards some kind of hate war against those less fortunate. What with this and talk of a voucher or card system - it's constant. Constant and very very planned.imo.

[HoneyMurcott]

Have we all got amnesia? Cutting benefits for under 25s is EXACTLY WHAT THATCHER DID in the 1980s and it led to young people becoming homeless. If you are too young to remember Thatcher and her ilk, she was an EVIL woman who decimated a once proud country, hated nurses, students, teachers, public workers, made the country more unequal and divided, for which Britain still even now feels the after-effects. Anyone remember Care in the Community? Ie Shove mental patients on the streets for them to die or kill people. Google it and find out. So it should come as NO SURPRISE that Cameron et al are cutting benefits for under 25s which we know will lead to homelessness. Big society? Big con. Still the same Tories. What did anyone expect who voted Tory. Do we never learn? YANBU.

[MiniTheMinx]

If 53% of claimants under 25 have children and they will be exempted and HB only makes up 10% of the overall welfare budget exactly how much money will be saved by making single childless under 25s homeless......is it worth it.

Then you have to step back and realise that the real agenda here is to try and give a strong financial disincentive to young women who get pregnant in order to build an independent life for themselves.

The fact is working class women have always had children, it is not some new phenomena and the moralistic torries of the 19th century had the same concerns as they do now. How to stop the rising tide in single female headed households.

This is not just an attack on young people but an attack upon women. We are bombarded with rhetoric in the media about broken Britian with single mothers claiming a life time of money and taking housing away from more deserving families, ie male headed households, married people.

This is not just class war it's the rich white male oppressing those women he wants access to! he would deny his working class inferiors those same rights. Lowering abortion term, re-hashing sex ed in schools, denying housing, championing marriage is an attack upon working class women who in not just the recent past have little intention of putting up with her working class male counterpart unless he A) comes up with the money, B) stops pushing her around C) joins her in the fight against their shared oppressor. Because it is very clear that working class women, lacking opportunity gains nothing from upholding class elitism and has no where near the same to gain from putting up with male oppression as her middle class sisters.

[Mosman]

My four bedroomef house has been sat empty for five months now. Available to hb tenants, within benefit limits and in bloody good condition, ofsted outstanding school around the corner.
Too much choice around I guess

[HomelessMummy]

Mosmon - people are threatened. We can't really afford to just sit around and 'wait and see, It may never happen'

People should shout now - while these policies are in the planning stages rather then wait for it to be implemented and then have no say about them.

And lowering the rents?

I've seen no evidence of that. Neither have the housing charities and federations. Private rents are not falling. They are still rising as demand gets higher because less people are buying.

[aufaniae]

Mosman, the level of homelessness is rising already.

We saw poverty and homelessness rise massively under Thatcher (do you remember?) and the same seems set to happen again, looking at the policies they are rolling out.

When the PM stands up and says he wants to take away HB for under 25s, and does not mention an exemption for families, I do think we need to take it seriously.

All their rhetoric about the "big society" and families looking after their own ties in with it.