To think this is a cruel policy, and not an actual 'tax'?

[katykuns]

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/jan/25/spare-bedroom-tax-contradiction-impossibility?CMP=NECNETTXT766

I just think its unrealistic, and completely ignores reality that it is not just easy to drop everything and move. It is also very unfair to the disabled.

Why can they not target the damn landlords charging extortionate rents?

It is not directly affecting me, but I do claim housing benefit and I work, and life is hard. I just feel like it makes it impossible to live with a 14-25% cut of your benefit.

Its not a tax, its a benefit cut. Say it as it is ... just another attempt to make people struggling to get by struggle even more!

To all of the people who actually agree with this benefit reduction, what do you honestly think people should do when they are on means tested benefits, find they are underoccupying, but there are no smaller properties available?

Should they just cough up the extra money? As I said earlier, that means someone on means tested JSA could be forced to survive on £55 a week.

Is that fair?

That's the situation my friend finds herself in. She is becoming extremely anxious about this issue, to the point where she is regularly to be found wringing her hands and crying, because she doesn't know how she is going to be able to afford it.

She has no idea that council tax benefit is ending on 1st April 2013, and our council have decided that regardless of income, working age people will have to pay 20% of their council tax. This will be the equivalent to another £5 a week of her JSA. That now leaves her £50 a week to live off.

£50 to live completely independently. £50 as the only income. £50 out of which £6 a fortnight is spent travelling to the jobcentre via public transport to 'sign on' which actually means £47 a week to live off.

Does this sound like a fair deal to you?? Does this sound remotely workable?

What is the point though cloud? Why leave them be when they are the biggest group of under occupiers? I don't like the idea, but as it stands it isn't fair to have on rule for the elderly and one rule for the younger generation. This create bad feeling In communities and I can understand why! This is exactly what the blue bastards want though, perfect way to froth us all up and distract us from fighting for fair private rents and secure tenancies for all.

Well said OTTMummA

'in favour of people who had control over how many children they chose to have while they were being supported in some way by the state?'

Yes, because every single person who is affected by this has never been in work for tehir entirely lives, just sat home popping out sprogs and every single 'elderly' person spent their lives slaving away never in any way being supported by the state.

Pumpkin, no it wasn't aimed at you, it was a general comment.

Why leave them be when they are the biggest group of under occupiers?

Because to be forced to move when you are elderly can be very detrimental and even damaging to health. Pensioners have no opportunity at all to increase their income, whereas people of working age do. The opportunity might be little with unemployment the way it is at the moment, but there is still more hope than someone who is to old to work. Old people don't have choices in the same way that young people do, they might have friends and family that they rely on for their only social interactions, they have doctors and pharmacists and neighbours that know them. It's not easy for someone who is 70 years old to make new friends, create new community links, but someone who is still of working age can do those things much more easily.

Also, pensioners can very greatly in their capabilities. There are some 65yos who struggle with age related illness and who are so set in their ways that moving would be very distressing for them, but then you could get a 75yo who would happily be able to take it in their stride. So offer good incentives to downsize and enable people to stay in their local communities and hopefully some people who could cope with it will do it. But don't force it upon people who are old and who would really suffer because of it. Thats just cruel.

Yeah, that's what I said Expat

'Old people don't have choices in the same way that young people do, they might have friends and family that they rely on for their only social interactions, they have doctors and pharmacists and neighbours that know them. It's not easy for someone who is 70 years old to make new friends, create new community links, but someone who is still of working age can do those things much more easily.'

Neither do disabled children and their carers, who are also affected by this.

That's what you imply when you write statements like, 'So old people should be uprooted and penalised because they might have benefitted from things that we going on around them in their youth that they had no control over, in favour of people who had control over how many children they chose to have while they were being supported in some way by the state?'

Cloud.

It has always been the tenancy that is lifetime( as long as you don't do stuff that's against the tenancy agreement) not the actual house that's why you can choose to exchange.

Vivienne.

No disabled people are not exempt,you are thinking off the benefit cap as people in receipt of DLA are exempt from that but they are absolutely not exempt from this room charge.

A recent court case ruled that a LA had to take into account children who have disabilities where the child's care needs would create a significant disturbance to the child expected to share with them however they are appealing that in the hope that they won't have to,and as far as I know it only means they have to concider it not that they have to exempt those cases, and it matters not the impact on the disabled child themselves nor any physical risk to the ther child nor privacy with regards to personal care ONLY that the child sharing with the disabled child would have significant night time disturbances

Hi expat glad to see you again, we both seam to appear togather on all these threads.

Neither do disabled children and their carers, who are also affected by this.

Sadly I realise that Expat, and I agree that it is very very wrong, as I have said more than once earlier in the thread.

I don't think I did imply what you chose to read my post as though.

I know it's the tenancy that's lifetime, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that in the past there was an expectation that you would be able to stay in the same property, whereas now (or whenever they bring it in) they are going to reassess needs every few years?

And the savings are pisspoor seen as they have had to throw 30 million extra at the DHF.

This is the same DHF that routinely does not get spent as its a discretionary in the first half of the year they don't award it as they have to save it for the whole year at the end of the year they find another excuse. Its time limited not subject to the same rules as normal HB,not awarded on circumstances. Its just to crap for words really.

'in favour of people who had control over how many children they chose to have while they were being supported in some way by the state?'

What was that supposed to mean, then? When at least one poster on here was just relating how they were both made redundant after they had 4 children. They may have even recently been re-housed by council/HA followin homelessness as a result of relatively recent unemployment.

I find it very disturbing that posters on here think that the elderly should be included in this.

The elderly generation are those who have worked all the way through from the start of the welfare system, paying taxes and NI all their lives to help ensure that the services that you all have enjoyed and benefited from have been available. People thought that if they did this they would have a secure old age and now through Political and banking stupidity they are being victimised in many ways.

The problem with social housing being in high demand was started by Margeret Thatcher bringing in the right to buy and not building new properties with the proceeds.

There has always been that expectation but knowledge that you could ask for a move either up or down size dependant on need, what they are talking about changing is removing it completely for the tenancy and the house on all sorts of criteria not just the size.

Stop stirring Expat, I already said my post wasn't directed at the poster who was talking about her situation, so why are you bringing that into it?

It was directed at the general implication is coming across that families with children deserve homes they are comfortable in more than pensioners deserve to have the homes they are comfortable in. I was also considering the points that were raised earlier about how this will affect families with step children.

No diaimchio some OAP's have worked some haven't the same as many working age people in social housing have always worked and some haven't.

'The elderly generation are those who have worked all the way through from the start of the welfare system, paying taxes and NI all their lives to help ensure that the services that you all have enjoyed and benefited from have been available. People thought that if they did this they would have a secure old age and now through Political and banking stupidity they are being victimised in many ways.'

So did all of us. So did plenty of 40 and 50-somethings now affected by this who may have been recently made unemployed (how many jobs have gone through Jessops, HMV, Comet and Blockbuster alone in the past month?) and find themselves affected by this policy.

Thanks for answering my question Sock.

Thatcher didn't just fail to build houses with the proceeds of council house sales, she specifically banned councils from using the money to build. It wasn't carelessness or stupidity, it was deliberate. She wanted to turf everyone out of council housing. And governments after her have equally failed to build enough affordable housing - they've allowed house prices to gallop ahead of wages and rents to climb to ridiculous levels.

Now this government is punishing the victims, instead of dealing with a dysfunctional market.

Btw, I agree with pensioners not being made to move, but I don't think anyone else should be punished either. It's a stupid policy in the first place but exempting pensioners while still inflicting it on everyone else makes it even more stupid and hopeless.

'Stop stirring Expat, I already said my post wasn't directed at the poster who was talking about her situation, so why are you bringing that into it?

It was directed at the general implication is coming across that families with children deserve homes they are comfortable in more than pensioners deserve to have the homes they are comfortable in. '

How is it stirring to point out what you said in a post that followed another one who is in the precise situation you imply doesn't happen to those who are under-occupying is socialised housing?

The implication, from a couple of posters, is that families with children deserve homes they are comfortable in just as much as pensioners, but one is exempted from the policy and the other is not.

The difference is that people who have recently found themselves unemployed have some chance of finding another job. Pensioners have no chance.

Exactly, edam.

Like the younger generation & 30,40,50 somethings not all oaps did work or pay into society.
There are people of all different ages that did or did not pay taxes.

There are lay abouts of all ages, older generation included.

Although i wouldn't want to see oaps pushed out of their homes, why is it fair they pick on the younger generation aswell as prejudiced?

With this new government, we seem to be going back to the Arc!
Agism is wrong

Sorry Expat, I didn't realise I was only allowed to respond to the post that was directly above mine and that all others on the thread should be discounted