Poor forced from the city's centre!

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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!

Me and my kind , lets not get personal. The reality is we cannot maintain the status quo with the housing benefit bill rising year on year, it isn't affordable and we need to run our public finances sustainably so we don't end up in similar position that the country is in now in the future.

ISNT you ignore the deficit and the countrys fiscal position . I don't see why people have a right to have the taxpayer keep paying large amounts in housing benefit just to maintain a "support network". Kids move school all the time and many people move around the country every year and I have never heard this as a reason proposed for lower life chances.

sorry, but actually byrel, the news yesterday was saying that the all new 'housing package' will actually cost more than it does presently. this is mainly because of the idea of raising public sector rents in line with private. i think i read somewhere that some one would have to earn over £50k in parts of london to not have to use HB to help pay the rent.

dont forget only 1 in 8 claiments are unemployed, a lot are vulnerable people, a lot are working [nurses, teachers etc].

also, there is a difference between choosing somewhere else to live that is as nice as your money can get and not being able to choose at all. there will be a lot of vulnerable people who do need to live nearby relatives etc to help them, for many different reasons.

Lego I don't think the Government would be introducing measures that will increase the cost of the welfare bill given the deficit we have.

well how do you think the people in social housing will pay for their new market rate price of social housiing?

i put a link on a few pages ago.

Nortine - you have remarkable faith in govt. Don't you see, this is ideological. They don't care what it costs at first. It is about a whole shift in society and a dismantling of the welfare state. Invest now for the future (their future, by the way.....ours is trashed, however much it costs)

My dad was one of 10 kids and they lived in a small 3 bedroomed house, the boys in one room and the girls in the other. The kitchen was minute. In those days people who were fertile had lots of children and made do - now people have a choice, the pill is free and when they have a lot of children expect the state to pay. Why? It is not true that the cities will lose lots of the poor. In Birmingham the richer people generally live on the outskirts and all the posh flats in the centre are let out to young workers who do not qualify for HB. I would say Manchester is similar. There will still be council houses for the needy in the centre of cities including London. Therefore I think this whole thing about the poor leaving the cities is just press coverage and headline grabbing.

What they mean is the nicer areas, nothing to do with the city itself and yes they should be forced out.
If you want to live somewhere nice you have to work for it like everyone else.
This whole culture of you can be as well off not working or working part time as somebody slogging their guts out has to change.
Very few people disagree with these changes in real life I've found.

mama - what about gentrification? Should poor people be forced out of areas where they have lived for generations, just because the middle classes move in and claim the territory, forcing rents up?

Fulham, for example, used to be dog rough - policemen would only go there in pairs. There is still plenty of council housing. Should all the working class people be expelled because the middle classes decided it was a convenient place to live and bought houses to do up?

Same applies to most of inner London, btw.

I don't live where I grew up and thank god every day as it's worse than where I live now. Should people be made to stay where they were brought up even if they can afford better ? After all it's where my family are.

And the cap is £400 a week, with respect you can rent something perfectly acceptable to 99% of peoples needs with that amount in Fulham.
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/property-28301647.html

what's that got to do with the price of fish, exactly?

No-one should force you to stay and no-one should force anyone else to move. The latter, not least because it will cost the taxpayer far more than simply letting people be, as well as damaging childrens' education and having all sorts of other negative effects.

I have been forced out of the area I grew up in because I cannot buy a house there but I still manage to see my family. I am afraid that is no argument. This keeps getting used all the time. It happens, some areas go up some go down. Do you think a family would stay in an area that has gone down hill just because their family are still there.

Wow, you've found one two bedroom flat, whoop de do. Not really appropriate for a family with two children of different sexes over infant school age. Or many families where one member has disabilities.

fsmail - you are talking about buying not renting. They are two different things. You have chosen to go somewhere where you can buy a house. Many people have no chance of ever affording the deposits asked today of first time buyers. Or the stable employment that would allow them to get a mortgage.

I'm afraid I disagree people move away from their families all the time with no negative effects whatsoever.
And since a hell of a lot of the claimants have no family in the UK at all again it's a none argument.

I know families who live in a two bedroom flat and the mother shares with her daughter while the two sons have the other room. This is currently happening and I also know one family who put up a petition in a room to split the room for their son and daughter. It does happen.

Why do people have a right to stay in an area just because that this where they grew up/family live, if you can't afford to stay there then you have to move and you can't expect the Government to pay extortionate amounts to keep you there.

Edam that all that's on Rightmove and it's well below the capped amount of £400 per week so no doubt the houses or bigger flats are advertised elsewhere.
But the fact is if you want children in their own rooms over the age of 11 then you will have to give up the convenience of the proximity to the city, it's what a working couple would do so why should a couple relying on benefits be any different.
Either the rents will be forced down, a very strong possibility or they will have move. Things cannot continue as they are.

People complain about a 20 minute commute in London costing a lot of money. That sounds like a 50 minute bike ride to me which would be free and save on gym costs. I don't live in London but I do watch some of these families living in small flats in London with their families, most with no family around and wonder why they do not move to a different part of the country where there would be more interesting job prospects, better schools and houses for far cheaper than the rent they are paying. This is a personal thing and perhaps somebody from London will tell me why they do it but I just struggle with this concept that being in the centre of London is the be all and end all.

where in the country is cheaper than London but has better job opportunities fsmail?

where in the country is cheaper than London but has better job opportunities fsmail?

And there lies the problem.

It depends what jobs you are after. In Birmingham and Manchester there are plenty of jobs available and a real skills shortage for professionals. I dont know anyone who is unemployed out of my circle in Birmingham although redundancies are taking place live everywhere. People are finding temporary work straight away.

My DS lives in Bristol and works in TV. Bristol is a really vibrant city and lovely place to live. Much cheaper than London.

I lived in a really nice big two bedroomed flat with through lounge and kitchen-diner in Solihull, station about a ten minute walk away, trains direct into London or Birmingham. Rent currently £600 per month, not per week. Around me lived an actor, opera singer, IT Professional, Accountant, teacher. With a location like that every job prospect is available to you and if you really must be in London, that is just over an hour away by train. You are close to all the motorway links to work in Stratford, Warwick, Leamington and within cycle distance of Birmingham. I ask again, why is this so much worse than being in central London.