40,000 families homeless due to benefit cuts - and no money saved...

[pointythings]

story in today's Guardian

I am just .

So what can we do to keep people in their homes, especially given that the majority of these families will be working families? How are low-paid jobs in places like London going to be done without penalising the people earning this low pay by forcing them to move away and incur huge travel costs? Are we ever going to have the house price readjustment that is needed so that people can live where they work, have sensible mortgages they can afford and are able to save a bit too?

Aaaargh, I wish I had some answers, I am feeling really depressed about this...

falcon

redeuce rents your joking private LL will not becuase they know that people will find the money no matter what they go without .So LHA be like yes were not paying that money but hey ho the tennats will just find it and most will

'Yet trying to find a 4 bed for 1000 amonth is almost impossible , let alone a 4 bed thats suitable for one f/t wheelchair user and a dc with moblity issue who is not safe on stairs .And there is no concessions in the caps for when circumstances are beyond the normal scope of things'

Not to mention, most won't take HB.

yes exactly Lachessi .I found this bungalow when was just ds3 needs , now have mine to account for am lucky LL agreed to Hb only becuase of location and he wanted a long term tennant in it .(its by a level crossing and i have abreakdown yard out back ) but it works for me .

So i am going to have to find the rent becuase council can not help with suitable housing and we have mp and councilors on the case

Meddling with the market increases rents.

if you are renting out your house and know the LA will pay a maximum of £1000pm thats what you will set it at

Time to ratchet up the interest rates to reward savers and buy up the cheap propertys when the BTL vampires go bust

no orry something

Your wrong LL know that people will find the money especially if you find a landlord that will take Hb

and interest rates go up so the landlords will put the rent up to keep paying their mortgage and who gets stuck in the middle is the tennant

The Human Catapault; two suggestions (both of which we've used at work - I work in homelessness at an LA)

? request, if you haven't already, a discretionary housing payment to assist with the rent

? apply as homeless on the basis of affordability; if the shortfall is £200 a month they'll have to accept you. The LA will then have a legal obligation to provide you with reasonable accommodation (which you've established they can't). You then suggest, via your MP or an advocate would be best, that they enter into a private lease agreement with the landlord of your property, if he's amenable. End result, you stay where you are but with high priority for a suitable four bed (most authorities make statutorily homeless households one of the highest priorities), and your full rent is covered by HB (different rules when accommodation is provided for homeless households).

HTH

thank you

yes I shall be asking for that as the Lha caps come in the £100 a month Im paying that but 200 be to much

Oh did not know about that so thank you and yes my LL would agree to a longer lease without a doubt .as long as they would pay the full rent .Would also mean with a 5 year lease they would look at adapting the bathroom and putting in a proper ramp .Other than that the property is perfect for wheelchair users

Will get on to the council in the morning and tell them I shall be aplying under homeless rules .We do have outright priorty under medical needs already .

But it is the no suitable property that catches me .Am appealing the fact I can only bid on adapted propertys but they infact have no adapted bigger than 2 beds .And i can only bid on a 4 .And they have no money to adapt a normal 4 bed without me moving in and waiting 2 years which is not really pratical to say the least

Thank you

Catapult you should be on the posters detailing why this stupid blanket policy will not work! My heart goes out to you, hope you come to some suitable arrangement.

Ticktock

I do not live in London and m rent is £1200 a month and see above LL know people are desperate to have roof over their head so people will find the money .They are less likely to drop the rent and often can not afford to as will need to cover their mortgage .so the tennant ends up squeezed in the middle .

I will find the money to make sure we keep the roof over our heads.Though I shall be taking Firestones advice and phoning council tomorrow .Here in Hertfordshire and west Essex You will struggle to find a 3 bed under 1000 a month let alone a 4 bed which is what the new cap will be .

landlords need to be curbed, we had a flat in london that was so cheap to buy in 1990, yet i reckon loads of private landlords who bought at the same time are charging way over the odds rates

are you talking benfits or just Hb .As most places it is nowhere near £500 a month HB .It used to be council would look at houses to let and then say ok your entitled to the average 50% rate .Anything more you have to pay the differance

Now they look around and say ok your now only entitled to the bottom 30% rate for the area

opps thats 500 a week Hb

or if your talking the cap on benefits ( which ironic being disabled I am lucky as exempt from for now anyway but not exempt from LHA cap ) .

But if I was not disabled this would be my break down

My rent is 300 a week council tax is £60 a week . £15 a week water That will then leave me £125 a week for myself and 4 dc to include food, heating (oil tank as rural ) bus fares and eletric and w.Now I am carefull with money but even I would struggle on thatb(ironic damaging my spine has protected me to a point but not from lha rates cap)

If had council housing my hb would go down so mor eincome

'Bloody ridiculous that we've reached a point where people are complaining about a 30k gross cap on benefits!'

That just demonstrates the insaniy and damage wreaked by Labour. And stil lthe left wingers bleat on about it, whilst never thinking of the BTL brigade, filling their pockets with 31 billion pounds a year of taxpapyers' money.

exactly Moondog forgetting that the ones getting squeezed in the middle will be the tennants .~Very few are nowhere near like people think they are .

I am going to be left with very few options

1. declare myself homeless ,Now if they insist on B&B then that will cost them as needs to be wheelchair accessible and sleep 5 of us so thats at least 2 rooms ,Though am going to take Firestones advice and see if can be declare homeless but stay living here but that does not solve my problem of being no 4 bed adapted

2. I am just going to have to swallow it and pay the bigger shortfall myself

Buy to let started with the last tories. Then the tories disguised as labour carried it on. They are as bad as each other selling off council houses and encouragibg private landlords.
Its all fucked

The issue here is really about where we draw the line?

We currently have a situation where a small minority of people get more money from benefits than most families earn through hard work. Rightly or wrongly it's understandable that a lot of people feel naturally aggrieved.

So this is an example of where the government have done something in the face of what most people want. To put a cap on benefits received.

Now you can argue all you like if that's right or wrong. Fair is relative. To those people with 9 kids and a house paid fully paid for by housing benefit then it's not fair. To those people who have to work 40 hours a week, pay tax and not be able to afford a decent place of their own, let alone have kids then it's fair and about bloody time.

Personally I think we need to accept that taxpayers cannot pay for everything. People need to be responsible for themselves. So sure....go have 9 kids if you must but don't expect the state to support you.

Personally I think a fairer way would be to cap tax credits and child benefit to 3-4 kids. Have more if you want to....but the government doesn't pony up more cash.

niceguy

Not saying need to look at rules but having a blanket rule does not take any circumstances into allowance

I have 4dc all born when married .I ended up single parentd and carer for ds3.I then joined the disabled group myself .Yes I am protected from the benfits cap .
But not protected from the LHA cap at all and know , I am not the only one

oh and work wise i work at least 37hrs a week and thats averagung 37p a hour .

I was looking at the BBC article on this and I was surprised that the biggest savings are going to be made from the changes in social rented housing rather than the benefits cap or LHA - 'This change will restrict housing benefit for working-age tenants who are occupying a larger social rented property than required, such as a couple in a three-bedroom house'.

I live in a council flat in London and all of my neighbours are overcrowded or living in appropriately sized homes. If these statistics are true, there must be a very high number of underoccupied properties (because the lower rent means that the savings won't be very much for each household - a 4 bed flat here isn't that much more expensive than a 2 bed).

I'm relieved that I won't be affected by any of these changes - I have one child in a 2-bed and I do claim benefits but I get DLA so exempt from the cap (but I'm well under £500pw anyway). I know of a few families who will be affected though. Most are planning to move to a cheaper area.

I don't think it's true though that all the poorest families will be moved out of central london - the poorest families I know here are the ones on the local estates who are in a similar situation to me and they have no need to move as they won't be affected. The families I know who will have to leave are those in privately rented homes, who are relatively better off which meant they couldn't get enough points for council housing anyway.

Curlybuns

They are making savings under the LHA mine will be 100 less come Feb next year and i know lots are .

If you take 100 houses before hand they would look at what is being paid for the 50th , now they will look at the cheapest 30 , bu what they do not do is look at condtions as to why those 30 are so cheap

The media seem to be making a huge deal of benefit claimants living in mansions in belgravia whereas the reality is that this isnt the norm.

The caps on LHA mean that in this area anyone living in a modest 3 bed semi will no longer be able to afford to live there so where do they go when there is no affordable/social housing available?

Under the current plans it is only vulnerable tenants who are going to suffer, we urgently need some readjustment to the housing market so that anyone who works can afford to rent their own home without assistance and those who require benefits can be allocated social housing so that they are not claiming exhorbitant amounts and taxpayers feel their money is being spent appropriately.

I wonder what is going to happen to low income but vital workers in central London. The cleaners etc. Tbey get HB to top up rents. Move them out to the borders and they wont earn enough to pay for commute. So many may lose jobs plus need to find money for a removal firm plus deposit and 3 months rent in advance.
Then change schools etc for their kids.

How is this going to work?