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.

YANBU. An atrocious situation where salaries have not risen enough and the Government is subsidising employers.

@crunchymint did you read the rest of my post? That's essentially exactly what I said... the problem isn't the day to day cost of living, it's that there is no help available to stop people falling through the cracks when something goes wrong (e.g. your breakup)...

Morons that spout that bollocks forget that London, like every other town and city, needs people to do the lower paid jobs.
Streets need cleaning, offices need cleaning, Starbucks needs baristas etc. Without the people doing these jobs, a city wouldn't function.

None of this is relevant to an individual that cannot afford to house themselves.

There has always been a disparity between London and the rest of the country but the situation now has become a national disgrace.

I don't think anyone has mentioned transport costs. I looked for flats available to rent in my area and they start at £550 PCM for a relatively newly built a two bedroomed one. To live there you would have to have your own transport there is no public transport at all and no jobs within walking distance, especially not of the zero hours contract kind.

allertse Sorry, yes you did say that.

The issue isn't about flats or houses. It is mainly single people with no kids living with them who become homeless, because most councils will not help them. This group of people largely rent rooms in houses if they are poor. Rooms in houses can be relatively expensive for what they are and require large deposits.

@Eliza9917 If I'm an employer and I have someone on a standard contract and I don't like them, I have to go through a bunch of annoying tedious procedures to sack them. If I'm an employer and I have someone on a zero-hours contract and I don't like them, I just stop offering them any more hours.

In theory my employees don't have to work when they don't want to, but those of my employees who won't come in for a 12 hour shift at 5 minutes notice, well I don't like them

@safariboot ok thank you.

I also kind of feel that we need new structures for accommodation. It's nigh on impossible to get the deposit together for a flat rental in London - the amount of money you have to stump up is VAST. But there needs to be high quality accommodation in between "homeless" and "£3k deposit" - many of my single friends in London don't need the faff of a 1 bedroom flat, or a flatshare, and would have their needs far better met by a grown-up dorm situation. Co-living, like we have in co-working spaces. High quality "adult" en-suite bedrooms and cool shared living, cooking and eating spaces. It would give people a bit of financial room to "catch their breath" without constantly living hand to mouth.

I don't know if the bedsits of yore are still around, but gentrification has wiped out affordable shared accommodation and bedsits in a lot of capital cities.

You could let it for less than the mortgage, since you are building equity in it!

But on a monthly basis I'd then need to find the extra money to top up the mortgage, as well as all other expenses. I don't have that extra money so I couldn't let if for less than the mortgage. I know lots of people who rent out houses and none could afford the extra costs were they to let their places out for less than their mortgage.

And with relatively high interest rates, equity builds up pretty slowly. After 8 years I don't have much more equity than I did then

@youknowwherethecityis Well obviously in that case you wouldn't be able to make the investment then. And relatively high interest rates?? Interest has been astronomically low for a long time.

As I said - I'm not saying you should charge less rent, you can charge whatever the market will bear. But the idea that noone could possibly rent out a house for less than the mortgage payments is laughable. And highlights exactly why rent has got so expensive, at the expense of people who would much be paying off their own mortgage than someone elses.

For people who have bought specifically as an investment then I agree they just wouldn't invest as the profit wouldn't be there. Renting out would then be exclusively limited to people who bought a long time ago and therefore had a small or non existent mortgage.

The problem in my case and quite a few people I know is when they are unable to sell their house for more than what the outstanding mortgage is. And because house prices are so ridiculous at the moment lots of people cannot raise the deposit and need to rent somewhere and there wouldn't be enough places to rent with only the older landlords. Ideally house prices would be low enough that more people can buy anyway but that's not currently the case. But then again our house was priced very low and no one wanted to buy it, hence us having to rent it out.

Obviously rates are historically low, but they are a lot lower for residential compared to btl mortgages.

I don't know what is cause and effect in all this but I agree something needs to be done.

www.katebelgrave.com/2018/07/newham-council-tries-to-deny-a-homeless-woman-the-right-to-appeal-a-terrible-housing-decision-why/

Wonder how long it will be before people start assuming this 87 year old woman must be a drug addict.

www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/homeless-woman-87-son-forced-14975386