to think the south east has started to expel the poor

[ubik]

www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/feb/13/london-council-relocation-benefits-cap

Basically Camden Council cannot cover the housing benefit for these families due to government cap on benefits. These families would have to find an extra £90/week to make up the shortfall. As I understand it, there is nowhere in the south east cheap enough for these people to live.

So they are considering moving them to a cheaper region up north, hundreds of miles away from their families, schools, jobs, friends, neighbours.

I find this incredibly depressing as someone who grew up in a normal family in London.
Is the south east expelling the poor?

[olgaga]

I don't think they'll be moving people who are employed! One of the things they take into account is employment status - it says so in the linked article.

If they're not working, they can just as easily live in a cheaper area without work as an expensive area without work.

[NinaHeart]

I work in central London for a not unreasonable salary but I can't afford to live anywhere near where I work. I commute almost 2 hours each way.
Absolutely agree that those reliant on the taxpayer for basic living costs should not have the privilege (if that's what it is) of living in high-cost areas the ordinary working folk can't afford.

[MurderOfGoths]

"If they're not working, they can just as easily live in a cheaper area without work as an expensive area without work."

Unless they are on job seekers allowance and job hunting...

[olgaga]

They'll still be able to satisfy the requirement that they look for work!

[ediblewoman]

Arghhhh, I am joining Stormy and Orwellian. £500 is a total weekly cap for ALL benefits, not just housing benefit.

There also seems to be an idea from people that vast sums of money are being paid to HB claimants (the vast majority of whom WORK but are low paid). This isn't true HB (now called Local Housing Allowance is capped at average rent, so no renting a house with a pool). My authority has to use rents from its own area (notoriously high cost) and look at rents in areas nearby with much lower rents. This means most HB claimants, again largely working people, are pushed into renting poor quality accommodation in undesirable areas.

[MurderOfGoths]

Satisfying the requirement is great, but I suspect they might want to actually find work.

[Dannilion]

Stormy - if I had to pick one out of this rhetorical situation it would probably be the gas meter. I grew up on a farm without any central heating, and aside from my habit of collecting thick jumpers I'm just fine.

However I guess you were more saying this to prove a point that £2,166pcm a month is not enough for some people to live on in some places. To which the only logical answer in my head would be to move, yes. Afterall.. By using your reasoning, what's more important, a particular school for your child or food on the table?

[olgaga]

Well if they can't find work in London I doubt they're too bothered. There is actually plenty of work in London! That's why most people go to London!

[twigger]

I live on one of the many council estates in Camden - yes there is a shortage because there are hundreds of families on the waiting list for council housing, but in terms of numbers there are still a lot of people still living on the estates. And most of the families here on my estate are the working poor (I was on NMW until December, I'm currently getting JSA but I'm well under the cap due to the low rent here).

So I don't agree with the argument that there will be no one left at all to do minimum wage jobs. There is still a significant amount of LA/HA stock in the inner London boroughs. And of course, there are students, workers from Europe who are willing to flatshare, so there is definitely a ready supply of workers for all salary levels, I think. People commute over quite long distances from the outer boroughs by bike or bus as well.

There are flats on my estate which are privately owned now, but because they're on the estate (which admittedly doesn't have the best reputation, but I've always felt safe living here with my dc), the rents would probably be affordable within the cap. A friend is going to be affected by the cap (has 4 dc), but she wouldn't entertain the thought of living in one of these flats, even though it means being able to stay in the same area/keeping her dc at the same school. So I do feel it's not just a case of people wanting to stay in a particular area, but also thinking that they deserve to live in the nicer homes (street properties) in the borough too. She is looking at moving up north now and says she's being forced out of London, but I can't help feeling that if it meant that much to her to keep her dc in the same school/community, then she would consider living here, after all, I've managed to raise my dc very well on this estate.

[MurderOfGoths]

"Well if they can't find work in London I doubt they're too bothered."

Ah yes, because it's easy to find work, especially in London.

"There is actually plenty of work in London! That's why most people go to London!"

People go to London because there are more jobs there than elsewhere. This doesn't however mean there is loads of work. So people go to increase their chances. It's not like you walk into London and are suddenly inundated with job offers.

[CloudsAndTrees]

I grew up in London and have friends, families, and strong ties to the place. I can't afford to live there, so I live elsewhere. It's really not that much of a hardship. I'd rather live somewhere cheaper that I can afford to pay for out of my own pocket than live somewhere expensive and be subsidised by other people.

[Theicingontop]

I'm in the Southeast, and my rent is more than half that of a London rental.

Out of London, yes, but not the Southeast.

Either way it's no easier a pill to swallow is it.

[StormyBrid]

Dannilion - food on the table is certainly more important than getting into a particular school. But my last post was taking issue with the suggestion that families on benefits can't afford their rent because they're incompetent at budgeting. If you're given a certain amount of money with which to buy food, and a certain amount with which to pay your rent, then being unable to afford the rent when that money is taken away has nothing to do with an inability to budget.

[IfNotNowThenWhen]

Yes, people live where they can afford.
Unfortunately the pool of areas most people can afford in London is getting smaller and smaller, largely due to the reasons I have cited above: No rent stabilisation/control, no new low cost housing, families on decent incomes being pushed out of areas they used to be able to afford, into scruffier areas, thus driving up the rents and pushing out the poorer families. Ad infinitum,

And LHA is actually based on the lower third of the areas average rent, so it's not like people on LHA are really getting to pick and choose the nicest streets that they "don't deserve" to live on.
I agree that places like Camden are now split between the richest and the poorest/those who are lucky enough to get social housing.
I don't see how this situation is good for London. It creates a two tier society. Big cities should be a good mix of people.
I would live on your estate twigger, IF it was a council place, because that comes with security. I might not choose to rent there from a private landlord.

And cognito-I assume you own your house? In which case you have no idea what it's like to try and raise a family and put down roots knowing your home is insecure and subject to the vagaries of your area suddenly becoming "desirable" and you being suddenly deemed "undeserving" to live there.
It's shit.

[IfNotNowThenWhen]

" £2,166pcm a month is not enough for some people to live on in some places. To which the only logical answer in my head would be to move, yes."

Really? That is the ONLY logical answer you can come up with?
Not the fact that a shitty flat in a not particularly salubrious area (have you been to Camden?) should not BE £2166 pcm?

OK.

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

My home is only as 'secure' as me being able to keep up the payments... if I was out of work or fell ill it wouldn't take that long before I had to move out and downsize. No-one, unless they have vast independent wealth, is immune from that risk. Life is shit.... but that applies whoever you are.

[olgaga]

It's not like you walk into London and are suddenly inundated with job offers.

I lived - and worked - in London for 20 years, north and south. I worked in London and moved out to North Kent and commuted for 4 years.

I know all about living and working in London, and commuting into London and having to move to a different part of the country altogether due to work.

No it's not easy to have to live somewhere you'd rather not live because that's what you have to do or what you can afford, but unless you're very well off that's what everyone has to do.

Most people would prefer to live somewhere nicer, bigger, more convenient for shops, closer to family, better schools, more choice of employment, better transport. But most people can't afford to live in a flat or a house or an area where they would like to live - whether they are on benefits or not.

[olgaga]

Not the fact that a shitty flat in a not particularly salubrious area (have you been to Camden?) should not BE £2166 pcm?

There are plenty of areas like that in London. What you're paying for is excellent transport links, and a relatively cheap (Zone 1, mostly) and easy journey to work in central London.

[IfNotNowThenWhen]

Of course you have to keep up the payments.
Just like I have to keep paying my rent, but my LL could decide that my area has "come up" and he could get more rent,and give me a months notice. Then I would have to find a grand to move. In four weeks.
And there is a limit to what you can downsize to in some areas.
I currently live a long way from ds's school. We need to be nearer, but I can't find a 2 bed that is near the school for less than £100 a month more than I need to pay. We are currently in a very ordinary 2 bed for which I pay more than I would if I had a 100k mortgage.

[olgaga]

Then I would have to find a grand to move. In four weeks.

Yes I agree it's tough, it costs even more to move if you have to sell though.

[IfNotNowThenWhen]

Yes it does-lots more, but then you still have the asset of a house, which, over time (recent times excepted, but in the long term certainly) will increase in value.
I lose £100-£200 every time I move house due to LL taking money off my depost. Not to mention the cost of the improvement i inevitably have to make to make the house nice.
Renters do actually care about their homes too.

[YellowAndGreenAndRedAndBlue]

you do understand some of these people are single parents claiming incapacity benefit for genuine long term health problems? You people saying 'I commuted for x years' blah blah blah, that means nothing. you were able to work. Some people are not able to work. Life is not fair. Some people get sick. Good societies understand this. How did we get to a stage that healthy people working, with the freedom to do all that we do, get pettily envious of disabled or unwell people living on benefits? I don't understand why you want to kick the weakest when there are people defrauding revenue and customs every day, to the tuneof millions, there are people making millions out of property etc.

[ubik]

I find it hard to understand peoples passive acceptance that whole swathes of London are now too expensive for any normal family to settle down in. It hasn't always been this way. My family lived and worked in Camberwell and Peckham for generations. It's not like i'm stamping my foot saying I want to live in Mayfair or Hampstead for that matter...but the fact that landlords are allowed to profiteer to such a degree that people cannot be housed in the south east makes me think that something must be done. London isn't and shouldn't be for the super rich or destitute. families should be able to live and work on a reasonable income in London.

Rent controls in New York were mentioned and you do wonder whether this might work in London - although I don't know much about it.

[racmun]

I've had a compassion bypass for the families where nobody has worked in about the last 3 generations. I feel
Sorry for people who have fallen on genuine hard times due to illness etc and if the benefit situation was sorted out properly those in genuine need would be able to have more whilst the scroungers would get nothing.

I would like to live in a Mews house in Notting Hill, unfortunately we can't afford it and live somewhere we can afford a 3 bed semi in Surrey.
My husband commutes into central London which on average takes 3 hours a day on top of his working day, doesn't see our son in the week, pays nearly £3000 a year for the train ticket, pays a 000's in tax every month and we don't even get child benefit anymore let alone £500 a week for doing NOTHING.....

[olgaga]

Yes but only because in most cases that's what you planned carefully over a number of years! It doesn't just happen to you unless your family is rich.

As you know, to do it you need to pay a very large deposit and mortgage interest payments of around 5% for around 25 years. Then you have all the other costs that go with it, building insurance and ongoing maintenance and improvement to protect the asset you have invested in - and some properties are a money pit.

And at the end of it all, you can only hope the value holds and you get some equity out of it and don't get completely and utterly stuck there, as many have been recently.

It's not all roses around the door. Wherever you live, and whether you rent or buy, it isn't free!