Preparation for mass exodus of poor from London

[SkippyjonJones]

www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/24/exodus-poor-families-from-london

The poor will be bussed in to serve, their low-paid jobs too low to live there. At their expense, of course.

Of course, people will come along and tell you about how all the immigrants will happily do such jobs for peanuts. Like it's a good thing they feel compelled to leave their families behind in another country and pay some rogue landlord who breaks the laws by housing 15+ people in a one or two bed hovel that breaks fire codes. Yes, it shows not how good their work ethic is, but how desperate they are.

'History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.' - Mark Twain

"Jeremy Swain, chief executive of the homelessness charity Thames Reach, said he was particularly worried about the impact on numbers sleeping rough in London. "We have reduced rough sleeping dramatically and we have a target of zero rough sleeping in London by 2012. For the first time I'm thinking that we will not achieve that," he said"

That's gutting that they've been making headway, only to have this brought in.

Shock horror.

I can't afford to live in Chelsea or Notting Hill, but somehow I am expected to pay for someone on benefits to do so.

Yes, people living off the State in ridiculously expensive houses will have to move. So what? The same thing happens all the time to those not on housing benefit.

And the inhumanity! Having to live in 30th percentile house! Could there be any worse fate?

Maybe if low-paid workers desert the capital in droves it will force employers to offer better wages to entice them back in? ....

wasn't it norman tebbit who told the unemployed to 'get on their bikes' the last time they were in?

so now we see that nothing changes but the mode of transport; they should 'get on the bus'. oh yes, the new conservatives -how radical and original they are!

how anyone can defend all this housing thing is beyond me.

Low-paid workers aren't going to desert "the capital" in droves anyway.

They will move out of Knightsbridge, Mayfair, etc. and go and live in Brent, Croydon, Shoreditch, Lewisham, ...

or will it be more the case that as you will start to loose benefits after a year of unemployment that employers will put wages down as they will know how desperate people will be to take anything?

"capped at £400 a week for a four-bedroom house, £340 for a three-bedroom property, £290 for two bedrooms and £250 for a one-bedroom property."

That still feels quite generous even for London, but I'm guessing that if you work you only get a proportion of that figure?

For scale, friends who rented directly on the Thames waterfront opposite the Dome, so you could wave at them everytime Eastenders credits panned out, were paying £1800 a month for a 3 bed 3 yrs ago (they now live where it costs 30k a yr), my father rents a 4 bed in a less affluent area of London and pays much less than 1k a month.

Lab tech friends who work in the NHS who do a skilled job in London but low income, have subsidised housing, no way could they afford London without, but are not unduly worried, so I'm not getting this panic. What am I not understanding here? [genuine Q]

all the research on the effects of the new housing policies show contrary to that LFN. do you know more than them?
they are booking b&bs in hastings...that is a bit further than lewisham. and by the way, lewisham is not cheap.

Consequences:

• Rents and house prices in outer London will finally start to come down a bit

• London salaries for low-paid work will slowly increase as no low-skilled immigrants are now allowed in

• People who have been scrounging will find a very sharp shock. That Somali asylum seeker getting £2000 a week to live in Notting Hill won't be a happy bunny.

• People who are working, and living in "normal" houses in mid/outer-London won't feel too much of a difference.

• Landlords will absorb at least part of the difference.

• When the apocalypse fails to materialise, a lot of lefties are going to end up looking quite stupid.

sorry, but i have to say this, i find your third bullet point quite offensive.

What is so bad about "getting on your bike" to find work? Surely I'm not the only person posting on mn working in a differenty country to where they were born, never mind town! My own father comes from a remote village in Scotland and took us all over the UK where the work is. The concept is not overly unusual. As for having to subsidise those to live in areas for whom it's just a distant dream... give me strength!

There will be a temporary shift, and then rents will fall (because demand will fall) and the prices will come back down which needs to happen anyway.

The HB cap has to be done, otherwise it gets like the US health insurance issue where there's no brake on cost because there's no accountability and HB limits and rents just keep spiralling upwards, chasing each other.

I'm sorry, but these numbers really don't add up. For £1250pcm you can get a 2 bedroom flat in Maida Vale (which is what HB is going to be capped at for 2 bedrooms). There are 84 properties available within a 3 mile radius of where I live (in zone 2, under 3 miles from Marble Arch).

Why are all these people going to be forced to leave? I don't understand (and I'm not remotely right wing, I just don't understand why the poor are going to be forced to move out).

"As for having to subsidise those to live in areas for whom it's just a distant dream... give me strength!"

Patients would soon complain if their urgent lab investigations weren't done. Skilled science degree educated friends started out on about 16k go up to about 24k and if based in London hospitals like GOS, St Barts etc often live in subsidised housing.

I have a few questions longfingernails

1 - do you believe that all those on housing benefit or in social housing are unemployed?

2 - do you think the unemployed should find work?

2b - if so, do you think moving them into areas with less jobs will make that happen?

3 - do you think those doing low paid work in cities can afford to commute? Or do you think they might become unemployed? (Please refer back to question 2)

4 - what do you suppose will happen to the disabled in the cities if only those who work high paid jobs can afford to live there?

5 - With regards to question 4, where do you think the best care and support is in general for disabled people? Cities or outskirts?

The Groaniad foretelling doom and the sky falling in. No change there.

Let's wait and see, shall we? The laws of supply and demand dictate that this is unlikely to happen. There are more empty properties than there are people wanting to rent them.

Sorry, I have to go out now but I will answer all questions above when I return later tonighrt

I was making the point that they are still the same old Tories... as explained here:
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/spending-review/8080656/Iain-Duncan-Smith-get-on-a-bus-comment-is-disgusting-insult-to-unemployed-Spending-Review-2010.html

But not the very poor amicissima, the very poor can't afford a commute.

I bumped into two people last week commuting into the city. One was on a bike (journey 5 miles, perfectly reasonable on a bike) the other was on one of those boardy-scooter things. Journey also 5 miles. You don't have to fork out a fortune to commute unless you live in the Home Counties or something (although I do).

Dont London Salaries include an extra bit for commuting? My Dh's does I think? As in, £x K for the salary and then £y London weighting?