Preparation for mass exodus of poor from London

[SkippyjonJones]

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

They do, don't remember it being much though. I think it might be an extra percentage of your wage, which is great if you are doing a high paid job in London.

I got it when I lived and worked in Slough, and it didn't cover the bus commute there! Though I guess public transport is cheaper in London. Can't imagine it's much help if your are out as far as Berks.

Where I work we got a £500 per annum South East/London weighting several years ago it's now been absorbed into the general pay so affectively we no longer get it. We're on a national pay scale - wish I could get a job in the welsh office, I'd be mortgage free with a mansion!

there isn't a special London commuting Minimum Wage is there though, just the one for everyone....

In the longer run will it help reduce rentals and house prices because that would really be the long term solution.

London weighting where I work is around 5k a year, regardless of salary.

Free travelcard too.

We live in a very expensive area. Our house is rented and when we moved into it was an absolute disgrace. It was filthy, really, really filthy and everything was broken.
I had to gut it, by myself with some help from my mother. I had to lay flooring, decorate, fix things, the kitchen is still disgusting and needs to be replaced but I can't afford to do that.

It was literally the cheapest property I had found in the whole town in 3 years of looking. So we took it, because it was cheap, and immediately people find out our address they say 'Oh, that's not fair, how come you get to live there on housing benefit'.

Had they seen the state of it, they would understand. The workload has been incredible and yes, we have made it nicer. And it's in a nice area.

But people often fail tos ee that the only way you can afford to live somewhere that you aren't woken every single f*cking night by drunk students or fights in your street is to get a total shit hole and do the work yourself. I still feel very fortunate to live here, but there's no way in hell I'd find anything this cheap again, so it would cost much more if we moved somewhere else - even somewhere really awful.

I feel embarrassed every time I tell people where we live, and I don't like to invite them round because of the comments about how unfair it is we live here.

LSIMH - The actual 2 small paragraphs on what Ian said do not seem offensive to me when you just read those alone. However the enormous piece of the article featuring the Unite representative and also the Shadow minister certainly are spun in a way to make it sound dreadful and full of vitriol. In fact it felt like 90% of that article was about what those two groups thought he meant. Quite surprising in a Tory paper.

I'm with Lady Biscuit as those were my thoughts too.

The Guardian is NOT a Tory paper. It is a paper for social workers and teachers and other assorted woolly-headed well-meaning liberals.

think the article referred to is Lego's Telegraph link

It's only the private rentals (and new social tenancies) that are going to be affected by this; the social housing flats won't be affected as their rents are set much lower.

There will still be plenty of poor people living in social housing who have already got their tenancies. In places like Islington, where I am, over 60% of all rented accommodation are with social landlords. There will definitely still be high numbers of the poor living there and able to do the lower-paid jobs. I only pay £370pcm for my 2 bed flat here so none of the benefit caps will affect me.

wintermelon They want to put social housing rent up to reflect market value, so they will be affected.

That new policy won't affect existing tenants though, only people who are taking on new tenancies. There are thousands of homes in London which are on existing social tenancies and they will continue to pay low rents until they move out (which happens very rarely on the estates around here).

Quattro - The link I was referring to was from legostuckinmyhoover at 13:59:49. Not the original link

Ah, well that's something at least. I thought they were planning on assessing existing tenants.

Maybe we should all wait and see.

It's the Guardian's remit to oppose whatever the government does so I generally take it with a pinch of salt.

Hopefully, it will bring the rents down in London.

Why should the rest of the country subsidise London rents? I would be quite pleased if people moved out of the South East and kick-started the economy in the rest of the country.

legostuckinmyhoover I don't know what is offensive about pointing out that the Somali asylum seeker who is scrounging will be hit by the new cap. Abdi Nur is really getting £2000 a week at the moment:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1294260/Council-kick-asylum-seeker-2m-house-say-neighbours.html

MaimAndKilloki

No, not all those on HB are unemployed. Those who are employed will largely be OK. Of course those who are unemployed should find work. Cutting HB after a year on the dole should help align the incentives nicely. Yes, I think the low-paid in cities can afford to commute. A cheap second hand bicycle is less than £50. The disabled should not be moved - but broadly, I think disabled services are probably better in London suburbs than central London.

Those in social housing won't notice anyway. Most of those in private rented housing who aren't simply taking as much as they can won't be hit either. There is nothing wrong in living in a 30th percentile house. I have just checked house prices for my area. The house in which I stay is about 15% cheaper than average in the postcode for the number of bedrooms - so probably around the 30th percentile mark. I don't feel that living here violates my human rights...

In my part of Central London no-one can rent a flat with the caps proposed by government. I happen not to agree with 'social cleansing'. I don't think that there should be ghettos of the rich. I want a mixed community. Council housing was once upon a time built in Bloomsbury, Soho, Regent's Park and the like. Why be resentful now if some people have the luck to have it - like some people have the 'luck' to inherit loads of money. And soon the rents in crappy council flats will be 80% of market rents - a joke round here, for sure. And don't be so complacent about it not affecting existing tenants so it doesn't matter. There is a lot of turn over in the housing sector and pretty soon a lot of people will be affected.

'Yes, I think the low-paid in cities can afford to commute. A cheap second hand bicycle is less than £50.'

I really hope you don't ever wind up in a care home with those low-paid people wiping your arse (because they're still very low-paid even in higher-end private homes) and they find out you ever wrote something that completely disgusting.

"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, ..."

Umm firstly you obviously don't know London very well.

If it's "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."

then we're not only talking about Knightsbridge or Mayfair - what nonsense!

Shoreditch is ridiculously expensive for a start! I don't know the other party very well but I'd hazard a guess that there are plenty of flats in those areas which exceed these figures.

The Observer reported today:

"Representatives of London boroughs told a meeting of MPs last week that councils have already block-booked bed and breakfasts and other private accommodation outside the capital ? from Hastings, on the south coast, to Reading to the west and Luton to the north ? to house those who will be priced out of the London market.

Councils in the capital are warning that 82,000 families ? more than 200,000 people ? face losing their homes because private landlords, enjoying a healthy rental market buoyed by young professionals who cannot afford to buy, will not cut their rents to the level of caps imposed by ministers."

They also say

"In a sign that housing benefit cuts are fast becoming the most sensitive political issue for the coalition, Jon Cruddas, the Labour MP for Dagenham, last night accused the government of deliberate social engineering.

"It is an exercise in social and economic cleansing," he said, claiming that families would be thrown into turmoil, with children having to move school and those in work having to travel long distances to their jobs. "It is tantamount to cleansing the poor out of rich areas ? a brutal and shocking piece of social engineering," Cruddas added.

The National Housing Federation's chief executive, David Orr, described the housing benefit cuts as "truly shocking". He said: "Unless ministers urgently reconsider these punitive cuts, we could see more people sleeping rough than at any stage during the last 30 years."

From this page

Oops I meant I don't know the other areas very well, not sure where the party came from!