To be irritated at the coverage on hb spending?

[facepalming]

OK so I know this is a bit of a touchy one so I'll try and word carefully!

The coverage I've seen today is all geared towards complaining about landlords lining their pockets with housing benefit money.

Now I'm not a landlord, but I think this is a little unfair on people who are. Most landlords own only one property as an investment and are perfectly entitled to rent it out for money. They have an obligation to keep the house in good standard.

the fact that people renting those homes are claiming hb is not the problem of the landlords surely? They are just providing a service and why should they do that cheaper to tenants on hb?

Of course rents being charged now are ridiculous but so are house prices and so mortgage payments are high too.

Surely the focus should be on providing more social housing (especially of a decent standard!) and creating an economy and society where people don't need to rely on hb??

much of the thread (not all) is the usual ill-informed school-bully bleating. Including the last comment about not accepting HB. I can't be arsed to explain again.

the UK's population has rocketed in the last few years, as we've all noticed. The immigrants and the babies aren't going back where they came from, so we need to do something. If there were enough houses people wouldn't rent shitholes at high prices.

So it looks like more money is needed. Taxes up.

'Private rental elsewhere is not ridiculous. '

Well to be fair that's partially true. P Rents aren't that much more here than SH. In fact I've just found a 4 bed house in my town that's actually cheaper than what I pay for my council house.

Xpost