Preparation for mass exodus of poor from London

[SkippyjonJones]

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

I just don't get why it makes sense for people on benefits to afford housing that the average working person or even well off working person could never afford. That does very little for social cohesion and does not encourage people to provide for themselves.

Vespian

where do you suggest poor people go they find area with cheap rent won't be cheap rent for long

and if yu have areas ghettos of poor people whose going to be a role model it's not always the parents that are the best role models I agree but they might look at the family down the road who work hard and can afford some of lifes small luxurys and think I want to be like them

Yet if everyone is poor downhearted disillunsioned who do they look up to ?

Think yet again people focus on those that get silly amounts of HB in very very good areas not in the more normal areas

So come on vespian where do you suggest us feckless poor go move to then ?.yes I agree 2k a week is digusting but where do you draw the line what is a reasonable amount vearng in mnd that not everyone on benfits are scrounges many are because of sickness ,dv ,poor health marriage breakdowns

I think you are doing "poor" people an unjustice. I have been poor, I was forced to move to a town that was a ghetto of deprivation. Despite being financially poor I was able to get myself out of that situation.

I have not called anyone a scrounger, perhaps the line needs to be drawn higher but I see that you are not disagreeing with me that a line needs to be drawn

Vespian average rent here is £1200-£1400 a month for a 4 bed not bad for the SE the hb cap here is 900-£1000

where can I move to that háve good chance of a job and with realstic rents and still have family support when needed

You could move near me, for privacy reason I will not say where but I am not far from you. I have been renting a 3 bed house for £800 a month. My new house will cost £1100 a month but it is a big detached house in a prime village location, you can get many 4 beds much cheaper and below the £1000 mark.

I admittedly don't really have family support ( my family who are fit and well live in London and I can't afford to live there)

I am open to the fact that perhaps the cap needs to be a little higher, but there does need to be a cap.

Not disagreeing I do think 2 k a week is a lot, more than my rent a month but I do also understand the £509 a weekcap in total is going to hit people hard where rents are dearer they need to look at sliding scales and I do understand that majority on hb in Lobdon or elsewhere are not living it up

Pst anyone got house for rent in London cheap )1k a week (joke I would not want to live in London

Well then we are not really disagreeing with each other.

Yes vespasian, but you seem unable to distinguish between what happened to you, and how you managed it, and a huge number of people all moving at once and the effect that would have on the places they moved to.

As one family, I imagine you didn't have much impact on the area you moved to. But if 1000 families like yours moved to the same area at the same time, what would be the effect then?

How did you get yourself out of there? Did you get a job? Would it have been as easy with 999 other families competing for the same jobs?

Ok vespian how many of them will take Hb and what's the LHa cap on the area ? Remember it's differnt in each area here it's lower than the rents you can get private landlords don't lower because they know that people will make the rent up

That means at a guess it's one months rent 6 weeks deposit so £2500 needed up front

In my case I need wheelchair accesiable house a sn school a primary school a senior school and collage oh and transport links as can't afford a car not quite so easy ans yes not everyones going have same needs as me but there have own specfc needs

I am perfectly capable of distinguising between the two. I did however move to a town that had very high rates of transiency so perhaps not on the scale you are talking about but it was an issue. I don't accept there will be thousands of people all moving to one place at once. As I said I am willing to accept that the cap may need to be higher in some areas, but there does need to be a cap.

I got myself out of that situation by working three jobs at once including a teaching job in a school that no one wanted to work in, ironically because of its high levels if transience. I think from memory only 20% of our year 7 pupils would still be there in year 11.

I am not claiming the situation is ideal, far from it.

That's before even looked at job and childcare needs should add

I am moving from one area to another, in the area I am in now the cap is £190 a week. In the place I am moving to the cap is £210 a week. ( I have checked very quickly so I hope you have the correct figure)

So you would not be able to live in my house that I have now, but to be fair it is a charactar detached property in a very desirable area with a lot of land. You can rent places for a lot less.

I agree about the cost of moving and deposits, we have £5000 tied up at the moment in deposits as we have had to pay a deposit on our next place and have not got our deposit back yet from the house we are living in.

You have a point riven, I went to the north when I was poor.

Ok so if we said £1000 for a 4 bed there in not such good area would I be resonable that's still £240 a month that would need to be found to top up the hb and wonder how many will take Hb also ok not all the same but in my case I need wheelchair accesiables

Now I was fortunate I moved in with my mum and stepdad in their 2 bed house with my 4 dc for 3 months while found the £3 k for this house and fortunate had and have no debt and that i can budget to top up my hb

but not everyone Can and I was very lucky to find a LL that was willing to take a chance on me though hr admitted lots of friends told him not to

Someone asked what the people who live in the areas mentioned think.

Friend of mine lives in Hastings. He is absolutely horrified at the idea that so many people whose roots are in London are going to be forcibly moved down there to stretch the resources of an already over-stretched area. A relative of his owns a holiday park in the area (static caravans) and is already under pressure from the LA to allow them to be used year-round to park their tenants in. He won't, because he doesn't consider them suitable for that purpose and wouldn't want someone to live in those conditions (too cold/damp by half in the winter!), but the area is already under stress re. housing, there are not that many jobs in the area, how the hell are the displaced ever going to have a chance to sort themselves out if that's what's waiting for them?

This seems to be being done on purely ideological grounds, it's small-minded and nasty. I'm tempted to say what can you expect from the Tories, but I pray hope they're not all bad...[hopeful smiley]. Some of the comments on this thread are repulsive in their gloatiness, however :(

Yep then LL up north will put rents up as more demand knowing that people will top it up

Oh and up north have their own problems with housing people already from their areas people are driven out with rent increases and lack of jobs

Used to live up north so I know how some areas are struggling

Take a look at Blackburn poor area huge unemployment high crime rate poor housing ,huge social problems .Huge race issues no conicdence that ukip and bnp have got footholds in areas

I for one would not want to live anywhere near there no matter how cheap it is and it is not cheap

I have lived in Blackburn and a number of similar northern towns, it was all I could afford so we just got on with it.

Yep lovecat let alone just how much will it cost councils yo house people in B and B and where do they go from there as like you said areas allready struggling to house people

The wait here for housing is 4-5 years at least and that's without people moving out from London

Vespian I'm guessing your not mixed race or your dc are not because I would not be welcome there I used to visit there and we was spat at and abused openly in the street

You was fortunate you had means and ways of leaving there many won't they will give up become tired of fighting and the strain on schools will become intolerable they had huge problems 10 years or so as it was

I have lived in Blackburn with an asian partner.

I take my hat of to you for that it's a very tough place to live and yes the pressures must been big

but not everyone has the strenth or the ablity to fight there way out and if there's influx in area such where there's already immense pressure the lid us going to cone of the pan in the community and the nhs/education resources

no one disputes that 2k a week is a lot but as you yourself admitted there needs to be a more realstic cap

Which till recetley was done by LHA rent controll .Yes some people abused this but then the councils that allowed it need hauling over the coals

I'm a bit baffled by the reluctance to accept moving for economic reasons (though I understand that once you're established with a family it's not cheap or easy to move - I've done it and I'm reluctant to do it again).

Where I grew up (in the NE of Scotland) you are economically fucked if you stay - by and large. There will always be people who want to stay and can make it work, but for most people, if you want economic success, interesting work, freedom to pursue a career of your choice, more culture than a cinema 15 miles away, and (dare I say it) a viable choice of partners to settle down with, then you MOVE.

You work it out: yes property is more expensive elsewhere, but there are more, and more varied, opportunities. (Hopefully.)