"Benefits are a lifestyle choice for so many these days"

[Bellerina2]

I'm on the bus and two women behind me are having a long conversation about perceived benefit cheats and one of them just said the above phrase. WIBU to hit her over the head with a rolled up copy of the Guardian??

But seriously, it's so depressing that people think this. Well done to the government and likes of the Sun and Daily Mail for convincing people that those on benefits are leading some sort of charmed life

I don't understand how building huge amounts of social housing will actually solve the problem - six children in a family may well go on to have six children each, and so on. And there is less "pairing up" so now there are large quantities of single men drifting about seeking a billet.

Large housing estates need an associated infrastruture: schools, a water and sewage system, roads etc etc. Not to mention somewhere for people to (hopefully) work.

I think it's important to get away from this more children = bigger property idea. It's unfair to those who have to cut their coat according to their cloth and also totally unworkable now. In Europe most people live in flats. Bedrooms are not seen as "private dens" and just part of the accommodation. It should be the case that all new social housing has two bedrooms. That's it. (Except for disabled before I get lynched.)

I agree. Which is why I support the " Bedroom Tax" and the CB and benefits cap.

You have to disincentivise some people, sadly.

I thought that single /couples JSA/ ESA type benefits are at subsistence levels ?

Jsa will be just £72 a week but ESA can vary,1 example this is for one adult weekly

Esa support group with premiums £180 a week plus Pip £82 a week so possible £260 a week,if entitled to mobility part of pip will be even higher,so it is possible

gracie

You have to be the first person I have heard of who supports the "bedroom Tax"

I think its disgusting tbh.

totally disgusting.
Can you imagine all those fatcat politicians with their children on the payroll and their second home subsidies sitting around and saying '
I KNOW ! we will penalise anyone whose children have left home!

morethanpotatoprints
She isn't the first and she's not disgusting
You don't own the home it's a council house and for the people. If your kids move out bloody do the right thing and downsize so someone with 4 kids doesn't have to have 3 kids in a tiny box and another in bed with them! It's called social housing for a reason.

I agree with Brenda. A 4-bedroom house for a mother and 5 kids... that means one bedroom for mum, and one child doesn't even have to share. What's wrong with that?! There are plenty of private homes where siblings share.

that would be reasonable Kate, if there were smaller council places to downsize to but there are not are there?
ALthough I must say, I was a bit :O when someone I know was rehoused as a single person into a two bedroom place and so had to pay a little extra. I was like...er.... stop moaning and take in a lodger!

Many social housing tenancies do not allow sub-letting of any sort, Sunny, including taking in lodgers.

gracie isn't disgusting the bedroom tax is.

It doesn't work, lets face it. The people that are affected are the poor, once again.
There aren't the properties for people to downsize either council or private rentals. People have no choice to move in some cases and have to find the extra.
Yes, its disgusting.
I know gracie probably isn't the only one to approve, but I commented she was the firat I had seen.

Nothing personal gracie

really expat - mine did as long as you were not profiting wildly from it,

By that logic, candi, why have four kids if you live in a tiny 'box' and expect the council to allocate you a larger place?

The real problem with 'the bedroom tax' is that it does not effect anyone age 62 or over, who are the largest percentage of under-occupiers.

Ours doesn't, Sunny, nor did our last two HA/council tenancies.

And how would you not profit from having a lodger? You charge them rent.

oh it was in London expat and so was relatively cheap, there was some clause that you could take a lodger but not charge them more than half the rent on the flat - or something like that.

SunnyBaudelaire Some people are never happy. When people are housed in 1.5 million homes for basically free everyones unhappy.
When people who selfishly keep their larger council property which they at one point needed (that's why they have it) that's okay?

They have plenty of good incentives to downsize, they aren't being told pay this tax or be homeless!! And sorry I don't understand how all this anti-rich talk will ever solve the problem.

With entitlement comes responsibility - Some of us have to bust our balls to pay thousands on a mortgage / rent and we make it happen. You've been given a flat at sometimes as little as £2.50 a week (for those on benefits) and an average of £400 a month! How is it disgusting to put yourself in the shoes of a single mum of 3 who's been on a waiting list for 2 years and do the right thing?

If you lot won the lottery i highly doubt any of you would buy a mansion, convert it to flats and provide it at social rent. Its economically inefficient to actually take (most) of these empty homes and just give them away at social rent. We need to find other ways to lesson the gap between rich and poor. The amount of people who need a council home is ridiculous . I'm not a bitch and i am all for social housing - but everyone needs to wake up and smell the economics coffee

I don't know about outside London but unless we want to build on hyde park there's no bloody land either.

FYI candid I gave up that flat to free it up for someone in more need and bought my own place. So you can get off your high horse.

SunnyBaudelaire I understand and agree with you - there are plenty of 1 beds / studios to downsize to i assure you. the council are begging people to move out and offering them converted victorians and people just dont want to. I know this for a fact. As for people who live in council housing being poor - they cant be that poor since so many of them are being bought and taken off the market at a staggering rate.

SunnyBaudelaire I'm sorry if i come off like a bitch it is a touchy subject to be honest. I just cant stand to see hard working people sit on a waiting list with innocent children and here we are moaning about tax on a spare room you so desperately needed at one point and wont give up. The council are even buying people of of their properties - again at least in london - I'm not naive but i feel like its so easy to point the finger at rich people and politicians and never at ourselves too

well kate I know what you mean but i do think you jumped out of your pram a bit quickly there!

but no problem!
I also got annoyed when this aquaintance of mine was rehoused into a two bedroom place and so had to pay about 12 quid a week extra, all she did was complain. After she got the golden egg!

I can't bear the phrase "bedroom tax" and would like to avoid contributing to its entrenchment using it on principle. Given that tenants have lifetime tenancies, how else could they manage this super-scarce, super-valuable stock efficiently?

Thing is, I don't see why anyone should lose their much loved home of 20 years if councils are then immediately going to move in another underoccupying tenant. Also, if they are going to break up communities, councils should be compelled to do more rigorous checks on people they are giving these houses to. These people were not, by their own account, homeless or even in need of a new place to live (they rented privately in another area). They are not locals (so no family ties here) and clearly weren't coming here after a job offer. A few checks would have pulled up that prior to being private LL tenants they were chucked out of a neighbouring HA for antisocial behaviour. As they are underoccupying anyway, why not tighten up the law to kick them out if they were proven to lie on forms when we are constantly being told that council housing is desperately hard to get?

I got my house 13 years ago. I had 5 kids under 11 and three were disabled - one fairly severely. I was living here for maybe 5 or 6 years when the next council house in the village became void. It was let to a family of 5 with a disabled child. Now, suddenly they are letting to people who are underoccupying from day one.

I should add that although it looks attractive on paper "Empty rooms - kick tenant out - replace with bigger family", it cost the council £10,000 to refurb the void house next door to me. So it would have been cheaper to let the previous tenant stay. The council have to restore a house to how it was before the last tenant moved in. My old neighbour had seen it as her home for life. She had knocked down an interior wall, had a French window put at the back of the house, etc etc. All her improvements were reversedThe irony is, the antisocial neighbour told me she only "picked" the house because it had a French window! And her husband was happy to stay where they were, and didn't want to move. Maybe a week after they viewed it the French window was bricked up and the original back door restored... These houses are now being given to people with no housing need and the money it costs to refurb won't be recouped for decades if the council are only getting £11 a week.

So by all means continue with bedroom tax - but build smaller houses and one bed properties, like they did in the 60s, for the tenants who are displaced. Bedroom tax is shattering communities, where people who have lived for decades are being pushed out for ASB and problem families. Ironically a decade ago, with 5 kids we could only get a 3 bed house so my older kids slept three to a room. I saw no outcry about that. And the council haven't repaid me for the fact we were overcrowded. In fact we only got the house because we were a large family. I can't help wondering where the families with disabled kids are being housed if my council is no longer bothering but the cynic in me thinks maybe that if the ASB tenants are on full benefits, and have no realistic prospect of ever working, that is more assured income for the council (even if they defaulted on the £11) than a large family on a low wage who may be paying all the rent or most of it....

In other words there is more to this than meets the eye. If we kick tenants out for having an empty bedroom - why not homeowners who still haven't paid the mortgage off and find their kids grown up?

Another interesting thing re bedroom tax... Two of my sons are at uni. One lives in halls, one lives in a shared house. We were told we would have to pay bedroom tax if it wasn't for the fact one lives in halls. Halls are usually only for first years. That leaves me with a shortfall next year. The worst thing is - half the year they are home anyway! But I will still be charged bedroom tax even though at some points in the year I have two adult men - one is 20, one is 21 -sharing a bedroom.

I think I'd rather my old neighbour had stayed and this whole abortion of a piece of legislation had been left in the fevered imagination of the tories. We'd still have a nice community here and I wouldn't have to worry about finding money I don't have or losing my home - despite there being 4 kids in it, as technically next year we will be underoccupying! Also my council would never have had to waste £10,000 of my money refurbing a void property for a family who underoccupied the day they moved in.

My MP is the tory Nigel Adams. He doesn't give a shit.

I don't really care how many spare rooms people have. But if the subsidy for those spare rooms is withdrawn then fair enough. I think there's been far too much fuss about the so called bedroom tax which is not any kind of tax at all. It's a withdrawal of a subsidy if you have surplus rooms. And this subsidy isn't available to private tenants.

'And this subsidy isn't available to private tenants.'

It is if the home is within the LHA cap.

there are very few privately rented homes within the LHA cap, not in the areas I know anyway.
TBH council tenants should be grateful that they have affordable homes.
IN Brighton I knew some people that had LESS than £40 a week to pay for their 2 bed places, and some of them still couldn't be arsed to go to work.
I discount disabled people and carers of course.