To think you shouldn't be homeless if you have a job.

[coolncalm]

Well actually no one should be homeless but i watched a programme last night and people were sleeping on the streets in London and didn't have a roof over their heads. Isnt it a sorry state of affairs when you go out to work but you can't earn enough for a single room never mind a flat.

@LunaLovegoodsRadishes The Mayor of London has very little power. He can come up with ideas, strategies and plans but local councils can refuse to co-operate with him so they don't get implemented.

Dh works in a minimum wage job here in the northwest , rent for a two bed is about £400 /month, he works with a lot of polish immigrants, many house share with 3or4 other people so can easily afford the rent, others rent bedsits with all bills included for £350/ 400/month

So every poster here is full of woes, and has come up with reasons why someone maybe homeless and working (rent too high, ZHC, previously evicted, no references etc etc)

Whats the solution? Sensible, achievable solutions? Or why not 'adopt' a homeless person and let them live with you? Quite rightly, these people can move out of London but the argument it will crumble without cleaners, shop assistants, care assistants, binmen, road sweepers etc is hypothetical nonsense and will never happen.

I do agree that Khan is as useful as a chocolate teapot and bows to the whims of the Left who want big balloons of Donald Trump, but not suitable accommodation for the homeless.

It makes me both sad and angry that in this day and age there are homeless people. What is even worse is that the numbers of homeless are growing.

I don't think council housing should ever have been allowed to be sold and I say that as someone whose parents bought theirs which enabled them to move out of London to a nicer area and much nicer house.

I also think something needs to be done about private landlords. They can really just charge whatever rent they want and so many are just greedy. How can it be right that rent on a flat or house is far more than a mortgage would be? Or that people who work and can afford ridiculous rents can't get a mortgage when the payments would be so much less than they are already paying?

It is all very well for some posters to say "oh just move out of London" but as others have said what if you have lived in London all your life, all your friends and family are there?

Also so many jobs are minimum wage or not much more. All those shop workers in London, all the cleaners, all the restaurant workers. Not sure what bus drivers earn or nurses but doubt it is that wonderful a wage. So what happens if the shops, restaurants, care homes, hospitals etc can't get workers?

I wonder too if people working but homeless is just confined to London? Of course rents in London are very high but other parts of the country also has some pretty high rents

Where do all these homeless people live? I am assuming they are not on the streets if they have a job.

It's a bloody disgrace. Wages should not be so shit that people cannot afford to have a roof over their heads.

London can't get by without cleaners, shop workers etc, so either they need paying or something needs putting in place for people.

Council built/run bedsits, priced sensibly and available to those who are working homeless?

It seems bloody awful that even at minimum wage, and paying NI, that nothing is done because without an address they don't qualify for help.

Situation feels very Victorian.

ZHC are not all evil

They fall into 2 camps. The ones where you are not allowed to be employed by other companies are really not great and you are at the mercy of the company.

However the ones where you can choose your hours and you can be on any amount of companies books are so much better.

I know a few people who manage quite well on this type of work.

No one should be homeless, and the government should have a duty to house every single rough sleeper. However, that wouldn't necessarily mean providing a full flat in the most expensive city.
I moved 350 miles away from family and friends to get a job, and it's just doing what you have to do to get by. I don't know why these people cling on to their London dream when there are plenty of shop and factory jobs in the north. If people on min wage moved out of London, companies would have to offer higher wages to attract them back, it's demand and supply

My dsis told me about the workers in her local pret. They shared a room in a shared house, but also shared it with friends who worked night shifts, so as one got up, the other got in. Now, this the type of situation that was talked about when workers started coming over from the Indian sub continent and in fact in Victorian times.
What are all these businesses going to do when people eventually go-no more! ZHC are atrocious-of all the heartless, profit driven things the tories have done, it's up there.

The thing is, people come to London assuming it's paved with gold. It isn't. People cant get jobs without an address, and they can't get an address without a job, vicious circle. If they stayed in Scunthorpe or Manchester or wherever they travelled from, they may have a chance to get housed because only your home borough has that obligation. Why should the people of Lambeth or Tower Hamlets have to pick up the associated housing costs for non locals? This is why some councils give rough sleepers one way tickets on coaches back to their home town.

House prices are the main issue as they go up much faster than inflation in most areas, wages even if in line with inflation can't catch up.

If you bought a while ago you are pretty much OK with any job whatever you earn. If you bought recently or rent you are in an impossible situation unless you earn very well. There are going to be a lot of children that never leave home or a lot that end up on the streets if they don't have a supportive family. This issue is not going away any time soon. Government needs to tackle this urgently.

Surely the return of reasonable council housing is the OBVIOUS solution?

I'm fairly right wing in lots of ways (don't spend it if you haven't got it!), but council hoses provided stability and allowed people to do a job well if they had one, or live with dignity if they didn't. Hostels and putting people in hotels ends up costing the council more in the long run, getting rid of social housing wa increadibly short sighted.

It’s having the rent in advance and a deposit. They want a month at least in advance and then a 6 weeks deposit so you need at least 1000 plus referencing and credit checks etc. Assuming they pass. I was told most I would be eligible for was 575 on my wages, yet I could prove I had been affording 700 for 5 years.

On top of that if your single homeless the local authority don’t have any duty to help you which I think is ridiculous that you have to jump through hoops and prove vulnerability. And despite not being safe for me to go back to my accommodation due to sexual assault I wasn’t considered vulnerable.

Reality is When my flatmate moves out I will be relocating up north to somewhere I can afford. Simple as that. Would Rather go where Work is harder to find but housing is affordable. The lower level jobs won’t be filled eventually and services will start to fail.

There are unscrupulous landlords, but most are decent people trying to make enough money to get by, just like the homeless you are talking about.

Some landlords will not have pensions and their rentals are their pensions. And they need deposits and references and rents to be paid on time, because just as some landlords are exploitative, so are some tenants. Landlords need to protect themselves but it comes at the expense that make it out of reach for some people who can not afford it

I saw this programme - it was Dispatches (next week is on breastfeeding for those who are interested).

The thing is, it's not just cleaners etc....there was someone working in Pizza Express. So if you ship out all of the people working in pubs, bars and restaurants who are on ZHC or minimum wage or who just aren't earning enough for London prices then they'll have to go and work elsewhere because they won't afford the commute....then who will run all of the restaurants etc?!

The system is broken. It's only going to get worse.

This is a much wider problem than just London. I knew someone in a supposedly nice town in Kent who ended up working but unable to afford rent. Too ashamed to tell family. He used his time in a hostel to try to get himself sorted out and apparently had a room organised to move in to when it became available a few days later. Hostel reached the end of its open season and he had no where for a few days. He was murdered on his first night sleeping rough. He was 43. Couldn't be proved sufficiently for conviction, too circumstantial, so his murderers walked free. This is what life is like for low paid workers in 2018 in the society we have created. There are no words to express how appalling this is.

London must be one hell of a city for people to want to work a mw job but not have anywhere to live .
You would almost think we didn’t have a choice in where we lived and worked .

So what if there are no cleaners etc in London . I think people are mad to stay in a city which offers them so little in return .

PurpleTiger, it not that simple though is it? If all your friends and family live in London it is a big step to move away?

You need money too to move and where are they supposed to find that? Do they try and find a job and somewhere to live before they move away or after?

ZHC needs a crack down yes its good for gig jobs etc but when every fucking job is not advertising ZHC its got to stop.

Office admin ZHC, retail work all ZHC, bus driver ZHC, teaching assient ZHC. ETC

in my local town i am helping a friend get a job out of 400 jobs only 9 where not ZHC....

Zero hour contracts is a con as they allow the company to side step all employment laws. Martinty leave = qualifying weeks no "work" so no pay, no sick pay , no holiday pay, no job protection.

This is why every company is employing people on Zero hours contracts as the pro's for companies far out weight any tiny benefit to the employee.

Most of Europe have alreayd cracked down on these and now only certain industries where it makes sense are they allowed they have been prevented from being the defacto employment contract like it appears to be going in the UK.

*now mumsnet hq can we please have a edit function.

I expect a lot of the homeless are immigrants who don't know how our system works, but if they managed to move across oceans surely they would move out of London.

There'll always people to work the NMW, zero hours jobs - students, those who want part time and flexibilty. this argument that London would come to a stand still is nonsense.

I watched Countryfile some time ago and they have mechanised the cabbage picking, so actually those sorts of jobs will become obsolete anyway.

Mydogisthebest Well if all your friends and family live in London why would you be homeless?
Why the heck does anyone care if the mansions don’t get cleaned in London or there aren’t enough people to serve in cafes?
If people start to move out the wages will go up . Supply and demand .

How can it be right that rent on a flat or house is far more than a mortgage would be?

Of course rent will be more than a mortgage - or how else does a landlord pay the mortgage on the place? I rent a house out, I need the rent to cover the mortgage, gas safety certificates, insurance, the tax I pay on it plus any repairs. I can't possible rent it out for less than what the mortgage is

Yes London is expensive and noones forced to live there.....but it will crumble without cleaners, shop assistants, care assistants, binmen, road sweepers etc and these people need to live somewhere.

It's basic economics that there will never be a shortage of people to do these jobs. The job market will always pay just enough to keep as many people as it wants within reach.

If, due to some sudden disruption, there were a shortage of these workers, pay would suddenly jump to attract them back, but also some jobs might vanish, as the higher wage cost would suppress demand for them.

Also, a low-paid job does not have to pay enough for someone to live on. Some of the people doing low-paid jobs can afford to do so because they are living with someone who is able and willing to pay most of the household expenses.