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?

So a single room in a shared house is 750 a month? Really? Or is that for a family home.

I think you have just illustrated why single people on
Minimum wage probably shouldn't be having children.

A 2 bedroom house and most 1 bed flats too.

And once again, it is the single under 35s that are only entitled to housing benefit up to the value of a room in a shared property, as of January 2012, not the under 25s.

Oh so a self contained living unit. Well I couldn't afford to live in a one bed flat until I had a partner and was well over 25 . Prior to that I shared , I didn't realise what great suffering that was.

The problem isn't people having children; it's that the cost of housing is too high.

And?? Of course some things are hard, are we now saying no one should do anything that is hard? I originally posted in response to sash who suggested that a young person temporarily on minimum wage in lOndon would be unable to survive without housing benefit.

My point was that it would be better for taxpayers to fund housing benefit for a short time so someone could start a career. Without HB it sould mean the same person spends years on benefits in an area without much work.

The min wage for a 20 year old is less than £5, so less than £200 a week before tax. Take 1/3 off that for tax and NI £140, Tracel card zones 1-3 = £34.20.

So about £100 a week for rent, council tax and food, not a lot in London.

Do you have children though london?,i ask this as you seem to think i had a crystal ball when i decided to have a family.
Get this straight dd1 by previous relationship was on very high wages but we split up, that happens these days.
Dd1, dd2 & dd3 by current partner who worked fulltime and overtime to provide for his family, he was made redundant after we had them. I'm a sahm because childcare even with the %70 off is unaffordable in my area, my wages alone wouldn't have covered it.

But if all low paid people chose not to have a family most of us would be extinct.
My grandad worked on a farm and at a powerstation, should he not had my mother?

I only have one single friend who has there own place all the rest share and they are in their late 20s and early 30s

If the cost of housing children is too high, then people should think twice about having children!

So what? That just proves that housing is unaffordable.

But london under the new rules and with the current high rent even a single, hardworking person wouldn't be able to afford to live in a flat.

Why should a hardworking under 25 individual have to stay living at home, how is that an incentive to young people?

The problem is High rent

"Minimum wage probably shouldn't be having children."

That is a very dangerous road to go down, and I find that kind of thinking abhorrent tbh.

If regular working people on minimum wage can't afford to have children then there is something very wrong with the system, not the people who want to live a normal life.

outraged, but when i chose to have my family the rent in the area was £550 and has skyrocketed up to £750-£900 do you not see a problem there?

So basically a lot of you are saying only the rich should have children.
Being rich alone doesn't make you a good parent though does it.

When we're talking about under 25s and HB, please can we remember that half of the households which stand to lose HB have children.

We are not talking about mates sharing, student style. We are talking about families with young children with nowhere to live.

"Shelter said that according to the latest Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) figures from June, cutting under-25s' housing benefit altogether would affect 385,000 households, 53% of whom are couples or single parents with children." Link

Aargh pumpkin what you don't seem to get is that your dp did not earn enough to support 4 children, yet you continued to have them

Having children isn't a human right. You need to be able to support them if you are going to have them. If you need help in HB or WTC, then only have one child. It is possible to make work pay, even when you need some form of benefit, if you only have one child. It's when people have more than one child that working becomes unaffordable.

Rent is high and wages are low, which is exactly the reason that people need to delay having children until they have worked their way up from only earning NMW and are able to afford a bit more.

Well, outraged, the cost of housing children is too high for millions of families who are working, and working hard at that. Do you think that is working people's fault, or is there some other cause that could be tackled?

But he did, £17,000 was enough to raise them on!
But minimum wage isn't, now he has been made redundant all that is available to us is minimum wage.
Don't you see the difference between 11,000 and 17,000. Theres a £6000 difference!

Why should a hard working 25 year old have to stay at home? Why shouldn't they live in a house share?

outraged thank god you joined in was beginning to think me and london were on a different planet!

I ask again where should we recover the debt from? Let's not be airy fairy and say rent is too high etc lets discuss rationally how you get blood from a stone?

Pumpkin, but you said that you were previously in receipt of tax credits. Is that not the case?

I don't see why arguing about the number of children people have already had is relevant here. The fact is there are families, with children, who are going to be in a very difficult position soon. Some may become homeless. Arguing that these people shouldn't have had children in the first place doesn't really help.

A houseshare, with children.
All the houseshares around my way do not allow for children.