Poor forced from the city's centre!

[redflag]

Am i alone in seeing if housing benefit is cut, and the poor are forced out of the cities, buy to let homes will go up for sale then the double dip recession (actually the third dip by my counting) will kill our housing market even more.

People act like only those who are out of work get housing benefit, and also that the poor or out of work don't deserve to have nice things and like like other human beings, getting really sick of it actually!

Homes need to be affordable, and that was never going to happen with the State piling in unlimited HB rents.

We need central London housing to be affordable for people who need to live there - nurses, office cleaners and other people who do shift work in particular.

The state paying unlimited amounts to private landlords is not sensible wealth redistribution whichever side of the political spectrum you sit.

The cap on housing benefit is right IMO. The cap is still quite high and it is simply unaffordable to allow people on HB to live in the most expensive areas of the country.

I heard that the proposals will affect 21,000 in London. That is less than a quarter of one percent of the population.

To Grimmathenome - well thank gawd that was not the approach taken when the deficit was far far higher at the end of the 2nd world war and money was ploughed into the welfare state. At least our parents and us all benefitted from that - and now we snatch it from our children. I wish I lived in a humane country.

Unlimited housing benefits was actually contributing to house price rises particulary in London as it was working against the market so the reduction may help bring prices down a little.

Did anyone see Channel 4 news last night? they had an example of one of these families who would be forced to move out of central London - neither parent worked (both had been diagnosed with depression) and they had 2 teenage kids. They lived in a 3 bed house in bloody Islington and they were whining about having to move out of the area when their HB was cut (they're currently paying £438 per week)

I was absolutely that this has EVER been allowed, the cap can't come soon enough. DH and I consider ourselves to be really comfortable financially but we have never in our wildest dreams thought we could afford to live in Islington. Her rent is slightly more than our mortgage on a 4 bed house in a less desirable but still quite central area of London. I don't know anyone who can afford to live in Islington. But my God the sense of entitlement - the mother was actually comparing the HB cap to the situation in the 19th century when people were thrown in the workhouse . Stupid stupid woman. So she'll have to move out of the area - so what?! I moved 500 miles from my family to find work in London 10 years ago - that's what people DO. I am getting increasingly sick of people saying 'oh but I've always lived round here' like this means they have some God-given right to stay there even if they can't afford it. I'm sorry, but you have to MOVE somewhere you CAN afford.

As lots of people have said already - you have to live within your means. I would love to live in 3 story Georgian townhouse in Clerkenwell but we can't afford it, so you compromise, you think about what you can afford, you factor in the commute involved, you look at the schools and you make the best decision you are able to. These are decisions which working families make every single day, I have no idea why people on HB should be exempt from these decisions as well.

TBH I am completely agog that Labour allowed this situation to get so out of control when they were in power. I used to consider myself a proper woolly-minded liberal but this situation does not support hard working families, it just encourages dependency.

Rant over.

you know, 30 years ago people would have paid not to live in Islington it was so scummy. Maybe one day your area will shoot through the roof and maybe you'll not be able to afford it and maybe you'll be moved on again - ho hum....that just what the poor have to do, isn't it? And god forbid anyone should say the root of all this is Capitalism and the market. Just blame each other in the cheap seats, while the rich coin it in whatever.

This whole thing is thinly vialed cleansing of the cities, freeing up the good real estate for the rich and well heeled landlords to increase profit.

The facts are blindingly obvious.

1: Social housing rent to be 80-90% of "average" rent in the area.

So take a place like Westminster for example where a 2 bed social place currently costs about £500 a month under this new crap thats going to jump to nearer £2,000 a month,and as it's 80-90% of the average it's clear that searching around the private landlords for the cheapest vermin infested dump is going to be cheaper then getting social housing.

2:Housing Benefit caps.

£400 a week for a 4 bed, £340 for a 3 bed, £290 for a two bed and £250 for a 1 bed, that isn't going to get you very far in London now is it? plus add to that the following two facts and pretty much everyone on the national minimum wage or unemployment benefit is frankly fucked.

3: JSA claimants to have Housing Benefit reduced by 10% after 12 months of unemployment.

Kicking the poor while they are down, typical Tories stuck in the cloud coo coo land of the Daily Fail readers, thinking anyone who can't get a job within a year must be lazy scum who must be punished, such attitudes will never help the long term unemployed it only makes things worse.

4: only 1 in every 8 Housing Benefit claimants is unemployed.

Welcome to Britain where the poor work until they drop for a minimum wage that isn't even enough to live on and then get kicked in the teeth for it by the Tories.

So good buy Social housing and hello families living in filthy over crowded slums again not that the Tories will care, the shortened live span of people will suit them fine, they want all the serfs dead anyway.

TheFallenMadonna Wed 27-Oct-10 15:13:50
If they're not living in expensive houses, they won't be affected by the HB cap.

No, no, no, that's not true at all.

Almost everyone who rents at all will be affected by it next year - they're reduing the LHA so it only covers a third of available rental property.

Thankfully we rent below the LHA at present - very scummy flat, albeit in a nice area. So I'll only have to sub about £25-50 a month hopefully and can probably stay put. But this is the cheapest flat I've ever seen in this area - we looked for 3 YEARS to find it. Everything else round here is about another £150-200.
People WILL be affected and will be forced to move. Especially once JSA related cuts come into play, ie people losing 10% of their HB because of not being able to get a job for 12 months. Which clearly is inescapable, because there are no blooming jobs. 50,000 jobs are being CUT atm FGS.

State funded rental is NOT unlimited. Grimma, you're wrong - at least in our area, the LHA is set at (apparently) enough to cover 50% of rental properties.

It's bollocks - it doesn't cover anywhere NEAR that, but anyway, it's certainly not unlimited.

Oh god at last some intelligent comments on here - thank you Ryoko and Frrrrightattendant for clearing away the vicious crap and ignorance.

Redflag, you paint a picture of these families on buses being shipped out to a workhouse somewhere but this is nonsense. Why on earth will they have to leave their possessions behind?

Everyone has to learn to live within their means if that means stopping at 2 children so be it, there isn't a right to be able to have as many children as you want unless you can afford to support them.

£400 per week for rent is not an insignificant amount and I work long hours to support my family and there is no way I can afford to spend £400 per week on rent but I'm not entitled to HB. People will have to commute.

Telsa, sorry but that is a terrible idea. You can't double, triple tax people.

Rents are almost always more than mortgages - to those who have not quite realised this before. People who pay a mortage are often paying far less than rented prices.

legostuckinmyhoover - I dont expect the woman on newsnight to find a morgatge of 2k , not mny people can afford that mortage working or not .

Also I dont expect to pay peoples rent because they have 'always lived round here '

The fact would be that if she had to move out of her home and the landlord still maintined his rent then very unlikey that he would get someone else there on capped HB - therefore he would have to bring his rent down.

Also if all of a sudden I can't pay my mortage then I would have to move to somewhere smaller and cheaper - dont see a problem with that , although hope it never happens . Same thing with this woman - she can't afford , sorry HB will not cover her rent so she may have to find somewhere smaller and cheaper to live.

i wonder when the interest rates will go sky high like they did last time we have a conservative government.

I cannot see any reason why a family reliant on state benefit needs to rent a house that cost more than £400 a week.

If it brings house prices down then thats OK too as first time buyers might have a chance.

All this talk of capping has opened a lot of peoples eyes as to how much money is being handed over. I've learnt a thing or two. I hate this government, we have all been hit already but this needs addressing. Also if no-one is working then why do they need to live in town?

'So she'll have to move out of the area - so what?! I moved 500 miles from my family to find work in London 10 years ago - that's what people DO'

...so you moved to find work, not because you were booted out of your home?

it's like i said before...mr.blah has got blah blah and i havent got blah blah. it's almost school playground stuff.

It's not just the fact there are no jobs, I was on JSA for 11 years, my parents never sent me to school so no one wanted anything to do with me I was treated like a complete moron by potential employers.

You can't just threaten the unemployed into getting a job, you can't just walk into one it's very competitive and everyone wants experience etc, the job Centre and all it's crummy schemes just make things worse, they treat you like worthless scum, the longer you deal with them the more depressed and down trodden you get, unemployment is a massive cash cow employing many with lucrative government contracts, they don't want the unemployed working they want to kick people when they are down to ensure they stay there so that their work doesn't dry up and they end up on the other side.

I'm sick of governments putting the boot in convinced the unemployed and low paid are scum who should better themselves, it's a case of social bullying, they can't afford to better themselves and no one helps everyone just makes things worse by making people angry and depressed.

We have been doing it for years and no one learns, no one tries something new because no one cares unless it lines their own pockets, meanwhile the problems get worse and worse as our population gets larger and larger, one day something is going to give.

well said ryoko and telsa.

frrightattendent, you are correct too. no landlord charges less than their mortgage; ents of course are going to be higher.

that way, mrs.landlord gets her house paid for by HB and he/she can retire on it.

funny how no one seems to bat an eyelid at his pension [sale of rental property] being at the expense of tax payers but are happy to jump on the tennants who will go to their graves worrying about how to keep a roof over their heads.

"I hate this government, we have all been hit already"

Labour would have had to cut too. They must be rubbing their hands in glee that the Tories are being blamed for sorting out Labour's mess.

"i wonder when the interest rates will go sky high like they did last time we have a conservative government."

I worry about this too. We have got too used to a low-interest-rate economy. Can you imagine what will happen to the deficit if (?when?) we start paying more interest. IIRC, one pound in ten of Govt spending already goes on interest - that's dead money that could be better spent elsewhere. We must get the Debt down, whilst we still can.

"funny how no one seems to bat an eyelid at his pension [sale of rental property] being at the expense of tax payers but are happy to jump on the tennants who will go to their graves worrying about how to keep a roof over their heads."

Are you reading the same thread as me? We have all agreed that it was ludicrous that a Labour Govt allowed this situation to happen over the last decade: that private landlords were getting rich at the taxpayers' expense.

lego, yes that's right, I have a job which pays for all my outgoings and I have no need to rely on the state - I have never claimed anything from the state with the solitary exception of CB which (quite rightly) I am no longer entitled to get. I should emphasise that I moved 500 miles to LOOK for work, not to walk into a cushy well-paid job, I have done my fair share of minimum wage and temp jobs while trying to work my way up.

'booted out of your home' is just emotive bollocks. When Dh and I were starting out we looked at lots of different places to rent together and chose one which we could afford. It was basically a shoebox but we couldn't afford anything else and we didn't want to get into debt. If you can't afford to stay where you are then you move somewhere cheaper - lots of people do it every day. This seems pretty reasonable to me, but apparently there are people out there who think they SHOULD be allowed to claim over £400 per week to fund a lifestyle which is WAY beyond the dreams of most people. This situation is now thankfully coming to an end. They have a good few months to find somewhere else which IS within the limits so it's not like they are being put out onto the streets. Sorry but I am at a loss to understand why our taxes should pay for someone else to live in an area which 95% of the population couldn't even dream of. Is that so ridiculous?

funny how no one seems to bat an eyelid at his pension [sale of rental property] being at the expense of tax payers

thats mostly what I'm batting my eyelids at, actually. I wish we could rewind the clock so that the spiral of stupidly large mortgages and stupidly large rents could have been avoided, but here we are. The state simply has to stop overheating rents, rental income for the landlords will be edged down, house prices too.

We live a 20 minute commute from central london. You can rent a 4 bedroom house for about £1000 - £1400 a month so cheap by London standards. Problem is that the primary schools round here are already hugely oversubscribed and have disproportionate numbers of disadvantaged children in them. Can't see an influx of the poorest residents from central london improving the quality of life here.

I think that commuting costs will devastate some working families on low incomes who work in central london in low paid jobs, and I feel sorry for those children who have to move schools they may be happy and settled in.

I'd rather they built more social housing in Central London to address the issue of high housing subsidies for those on low incomes.