To wonder if Labour really will scrap the bedroom tax?

[GaryShitpeas]

Not going to go into why i am against it but I am. Doesn't affect me ATM as not on Hb but I probably will need to be in the future.

But I personally will be voting labour for this reason alone ....this is the first time I've ever voted (to my shame) because I want it gone. But I wonder if they'll actually keep their promise.....

OMG now you're at it

That was me arsenic. My point was working non claiming people benefitting from being in social housing should contribute too. If your circs have changed or improved to the point that you're occupying properties meant for those on the bones of their arses, then you should - IMO - contribute if you want to remain as yore already living in subsidised accommodation.

Or do I mean pay for the extra rooms @ the 14/25 rate... The haves paying for the have not sort of thing. Perhaps naive:(

You're obvs.

They do already "contribute"- or as the more literally-minded amongst us describe it- pay rent.

wish I think maybe you're just not understanding the system very well.

I'm in London. My borough charges (on average) £224 per week in rent for a 3 bed flat; £11648 per year; Nearly a grand a month.

www.wandsworth.gov.uk/.../wandsworth_council...rent_guidance

It's hardly a giveaway.

If I worked FT in my (post grad qualified, medium paid) career FT and lived in a house like that alone with DC I could get by paying that rent, Just rib along, no more.

But you want anyone who is working to move out of their council houses?!

I can't make up my mind if you're serious.

Yes. And Low rents. And secured tenancies.

Oh I dunno! I think what I'm trying to say is those who do not need the safety net of social housing anymore - decent income with enough to pay more could. It's about those people sitting pretty in their secured tenancies who have done so for years and who really don't need it that bother me. That fuck you Im alright jack mentality. I just think everyone is entitled to a good standard of home and if your circumstances have improved to a point where you can contribute more (to keep lower rent and secured tenancies) that that would assist or offset those who can't. It's not a dig at people who don't claim hb and live in SH - it's an idea for a solution in the absence of enough housing stock which is forcing struggling people to struggle more.

No offence meant. Probably just not thought through enough!

The social housing is often such low rent landlords will not let to people on it and bears no relationship to market rents in much of London. People like the late Bob Crow on £100k + his wife's income should not be hogging social housing places meant for the very poor.

"Greengrow, ... are you seriously suggesting that single mothers should be forced to share accommodation? "

Yes because lots of other people do who are not claiming benefits so I do not see why the benefits claimants should be treated better than those working to pay those benefits through their taxes who are themselves sharing accommodation. I find it amazing anyone thinks single mothers should not share places. What on earth would be wrong with 3 single mothers each with a baby in a 3 bed flat? They are housed, they are warm, they are provided for. I would regard that as caring very well for them indeed.

The social housing is often such low rent landlords will not let to people on it and bears no relationship to market rents in much of London.

Greengrow that sentence betrays your complete lack of understanding.

Social housing is council and housing association housing.That sentence is therefore gobbledegook.

It's hardly a giveaway.

224 a week for a 3 bed? That actually does sound like a giveaway to me.

Maybe you'd have to see them written - I would be scared to live on those estates and am very grateful I don't have to consider it.

£11648 pay rental paid out of taxed income us getting on for an amount approaching £14,000 per tax! thats a whopping amount if anyone's income

This is all so self-defeating if the Govt then has to provide Housing a Benefit / LHA to meet the shortfall that most working families will need.

The Govt cannot just sit back and jet this situation carry on unchecked. These rents are already unsustainable, not just for those who are expected to pay them but for the tax ayers too

£11648 pay rental paid out of taxed income us getting on for an amount approaching £14,000 per tax! thats a whopping amount if anyone's income

Exactly Wet. For a tiny floorplan, often no outside space, a grim neighbourhood, high crime, shoddy maintainence and london living costs on top.

Yet people talk as though this is an amazing deal.

The security of tenure is good, but more people should have that, not fewer.

Thing is Greengrow, those babies will grow rapidly. What then?
Are you suggesting regular moves as the babies grow?
As it happens we already provide targeted accommodation in some areas. My town has a fantastic project which houses young single mothers in dedicated accommodation as a halfway measure. It's a block of bedsits and flats which they live in for up to two years. They get support to learn life skills such as budgeting, nutrition, work preparation etc. They are then housed if they meet the local criteria.
So your idea of shared accommodation already happens. The project above is run by a local housing association.

Yes, normal people in jobs with no housing benefit and those not in social housing move regularly. We moved - first when I was pregnant, then 2 years later, then 2 years after that. That is normal life.

Social housing rents are lower than market rents in much of London. My daughter's one bed flat lets out to people not on housing benefit and the rent is about £1350 a month. That is £311 a month for aone bed compared with the person above paying £224 a week for a three bed! Also all those women her age working 12 hours a day, paying high tax to keep benefit claimants they do notice that there is a family of XYZ not working or not working very hard near by on very very low rents kept by the Council. It is very unfair.

But who says people need 'support to learn life skills' Grateful?

Those people, in the scheme you mention, might. Or they might not - they certainly don't automatically need tuition in nutrition, budgeting and work preparation purely by dint of being single + mothers + young. Hopefully, it is a social care intervention, targetted at people genuinely in need of extra support. It should be.

But social care schemes address a social care need, they don't address a general housing issue.

If you make a move to roll that kind of provision out to people ho have a straightforward housing need, you are again edging back towards the workhouse.

Putting extra conditionality on the cheapest housing generally simply because housing generally is a scarce and expensive resource, is unreasonable.

Greengrow the solution is not to charge CT more than PT but to provide more affordable housing.

Charging council tenants more isn't going to bring down the rent for your daughter is it?

What's unfair is the price of rent in the private sector, trying to raise the rent in social housing doesn't make it fair, just means its unaffordable for even more people.

Yes, normal people in jobs with no housing benefit and those not in social housing move regularly. We moved - first when I was pregnant, then 2 years later, then 2 years after that. That is normal life.

That's a bit sweeping. Most owner occupiers in my experience move pretty seldom. Maybe owning three homes on average in a lifetime. Perhaps four.

Even more so at the moment, when many people would be unable to requalify for their own mortgages (my own personal gripe/problem) and others have little or no equity (whole chunks of the country still) or haven't had until recently.

My daughter's one bed flat lets out to people not on housing benefit and the rent is about £1350 a month. That is £311 a month for aone bed compared with the person above paying £224 a week for a three bed!

Yes but what %age of the population can afford one compared with the other?

Wish was advocating that the moment working council tenants could afford to pay their rent without HB assistance, they move on. Meaning, inevitably, that they would then have to claim HB assistance to pay a higher, private, rent. Where is the benefit in that.

In the end, people have to live somewhere. Average rents are far, far higher than average earnings can support, so subsidy is needed.

It seemes to me that the people who have done rather well from rising prices and BTL investments are also often the same people giving tenants a hard time for being victims of the economic situation, which is a bit sick really.

seems^ to me....

Also all those women her age working 12 hours a day, paying high tax to keep benefit claimants they do notice that there is a family of XYZ not working or not working very hard near by on very very low rents kept by the Council. It is very unfair.

'Unfair' is a little harsh, it's certainly very unequal.

But I'm sure your DD and her friends appreciate the immense advantages that make paying high tax (i.e. earning high wages) a possibility for them and mean that, for them at least, long hours and hard work are rewarded.

I earn 34k and live in social housing and I am 'entitled' to housing benefit.

I don't claim it as my unemployed partner occasionally gets casual work and it's too complicated having my benefits reassessed every time he takes the work.

But it goes to show that it's not just the 'work shy poor' who claim hb, but also families who earn more than the average wage and living in social housing.

Does everyone not understand that the bedroom tax is a restriction in the amount of housing benefit a tenant can claim?

I don't think everyone does understand that unfortunately. Labour, despite being crap opposition in many ways, have done an amazing job of getting the media to refer to their 'bedroom tax' bollocks, so many people do seem to falsely believe that it is some kind of tax and that people's rent has gone up to being more expensive than it was previously.

The social housing is often such low rent landlords will not let to people on it and bears no relationship to market rents in much of London

ABSOLUTE LOL