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!

Oh yes, all these people are just going to waltz out of London into nice houses all over the country where there is plenty of employment, school places available, good public transport facilities and translator/community support for those that need them - GET REAL! And who precisely is going do all the work in London (from nursing to cleaning to shopwork to teaching), once the exodus occurs.

Translator/community support only available in London is it!!! Nurses will still be able to afford to live there, cleaning may be an issue but then employers will just have to up their rates to employ people if there is a shortage. Rents could even go down if there is less HB support. How bad would that be?

Of course there must be council houses in rich areas. we certainly do not wish to have the servants rolling up at all times of the day and blaming it on public transport. Likewise if one is having a little soiree one doesn't want the hired help to moan about last buses.

Jodevises - you mean your staff don't live in? Is your house too small or something?

Money, money, money.

So you work (in London) and get minimum wage which is about 8k a year I think, so you don't have any savings because you don't get paid enough to even rent and have to get HB to top it up and travel costs are over £150 a month just to go between 3 zones.

How exactly do you move out of London then? when you have no money for a deposit, no money for moving fees, and the the travel in to the crummy job you hate is more then 3x as much and takes twice as long at least.

Caps equal more houses filled with tonnes of bunk beds so greedy landlords don't loose money but instead make more, the poor denied the basic right to start a family expected to stay a single worker unit until death, when they will be replaced by an immigrant who will be wipeing the bottoms of the rich in the OAP care homes because there isn't enough native working class kids to do it.

Heres how you fix the housing problems.
1: build more stock and renovate whats there.
2: Inspect peoples current living conditions and personal needs before placing them on the housing list.
3: Appoint more inspectors to deal with those who are taking the piss and exploiting loopholes.
4: Cap the rent private landlords can charge and inspect the properties to make sure they meet a minimum standard for the price.
5: increase the national minimum wage, or expand the London waiting scheme to all low paid works who are not living with parents.

The minimum wage is higher at about £12,500 (but still too low for London). I would rather see this increased than pay HB at such levels. The only problem is the knock on effect it will have to companies who are struggling at the moment, those in the higher grades will also want more right up to the CE. May be the Councils could start by doing this and then when the economy improves it will have an inflationary pressure on other wages. The difference in salary compared to the rest of the UK is not that big and therefore most people struggle in London. Building more social housing would cost more in the short term but would reduce costs in the longer term and anyone living in a mansion on HB should be moved. Absolutely not necessary.

NO WE DON'T ALL DO MIN HRS TO QUALIFY FOR HB HELP!!!! DP works FT for £16K, average rents are £1000 pcm. And we are better off than a lot of FT workers we know who only EARN £12K for a ft job....and have to pay £12K for a small 3-bed mid-terrace house here. How the fuck would THAT one work without HB???

it is not £12, 500, I get £6.75 an hour and Tend to end up with a take home pay around 11k or so after tax.

£1000 pcm is still within the cap is it not? I thought that was £400 per week.

£12,500 is the gross amount.

Loudlass you talk about you DPs salary, do you not work?

It's ridiculous that a familly who don't work can have a 'mansion' just because they need the space for their ever increasing familly.

What's wrong with using the living room as a bedroom? Why do they think every child should have their own seperate room.
If they are that bothered they could just divide up the rooms with sheets.

Lots of people in the world live in much smaller spaces

mama, does your swanky flat accept HB tennants?

and as for..."And since a hell of a lot of the claimants have no family in the UK at all again it's a none argument".

can you explain what that actually means???

people on housing benefit DO NOT live in mansions either, you are thinking of Tory MP's , in fact some even have moats. who pays their wages?

and there are lots of people sleeping in their living rooms. with lots of their kids sleeping in the same bed too. it really is not all that glamorous as Dave and the Mail would have us think.

Nobody on here would appear to be saying that all people on HB live in mansions. Where people are living in £1m houses on HB, this should be corrected and I don't believe anyone is saying HB should go altogether.

how many are there doing that? living in 1million pound houses and getting i million pounds in housing benefit? who? how many? have you got the stats?

and ripeberry and someone else way back said about 'mansions'.

would love to know how many people are doing this, since everyone seems to think this is the 'norm'.

Compared to the amount of people managing to avoid taxation this is peanuts but of course it is better to focus on those who really cant shout loudest than to try and address people like Lord Ashcroft isnt it?

I don't think people think that all people on HB live in mansions but they do notice that there are some people on HB in nicer houses than they are in that they are paying for themselves and I do have some sympathy for this position.

I notice that some people get away with paying no tax but still manage to be in government how is that fair?

We are sinking to the level of the daily wail if we constantly attack people on HB rather than fraud in the finance sector and big tax exiles.

Sylvia what would you have the Government do about tax exiles, if they don't live in the country then the Government can't do anything.