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

206 replies

pointythings · 03/07/2011 19:01

story in today's Guardian

I am just Shock.

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...

OP posts:
Fifis25StottieCakes · 07/07/2011 10:06

Morleth - i was rehoused after a family split and repossessiom. It involved living in homeless accommodation for 8 months then i was rehoused. This was over 2 years ago. The problem now is there are probably going to be a lot more people who require housing compared to 2 years ago. Private rents are huge compared to council rents. My house which was bought and rented out by a lardlord is £650pcm. My council rent is £290. Thats for exacactly the same house in the next street.

Morloth · 07/07/2011 10:29

But what if the council has no liability for people at all? What if they are no longer requried to rehouse anyone, home or kids or money notwithstanding.

That is what is starting to worry me, there is an assumption that at the very least there will be a BnB or something provided, what if the money for that is no longer forthcoming and people are just out on their ears? What are people going to do? Because it seems the next logical step to me if you are trying to not spend money.

Fifis25StottieCakes · 07/07/2011 10:36

I dont know Morrloth. Its is worrying. My MIL is a housing officer and they are starting redundancies there. My mam is a council home help and they are laying people off. My dads a manager within the NHS, there staff have been cut. What happens to all these people who cant get another job to pay their mortgage.

niceguy2 · 07/07/2011 14:24

if i was prime minister/chancellor, I would tax people who earned more than £100k at 50% and those who earned bonuses or greater salaries than £150k at an additional 25%. I would also tax inheritances at a much higher rate and I would tax sales of property, windfall taxes, sodding rich companies like banks, microsoft and the like at 75% - I just think that if people/organisations earn that much (and 'earn'? how much more work do they actually do than say, a hospital nurse?) then they should be happy to contribute more. Remember the parable of the widow's mite...

Thank god you are not prime minister then!

How do you propose taxing a rich American company like Microsoft? Sure they have a UK presence but nothing they couldn't easily fold up if someone came up with a stupid 75% tax. Oh look....lots of people redundant.

Ditto with banks. How do you tax a "rich bank" at 75% when they could relocate to another country and pay much less?

Flowers40 · 07/07/2011 15:47

HI All

Mornot, the Councils DID have a legal duty towards housing homeless people (who met the 5 criteria set out in the Housing Act 1996) until late last year when it was passed they were allowed to discharge it under the Localism Bill if they so wished.. into... (drum roll).... The Private Sector.. (which in some areas they have been having to try and do for some years)

Don't ask me to explain how that is gonna work

Flowers40 · 07/07/2011 15:49

Sorry meant morloth

moondog · 07/07/2011 19:33

'My house which was bought and rented out by a lardlord is £650pcm. My council rent is £290. Thats for exacactly the same house in the next street.'

Jesus, that is wicked.

Fifis25StottieCakes · 07/07/2011 19:50

I know they have to make some money on it as its there lively hood but he has at least 8 other repossessions on my estate, they are only the ones i know of. He has others which are rented out for between 400 and 600. He only takes HB. I think he must adjust the rent to whatever the maximun the tenants will get paid.

He bought mine at repossession for 73ish. It was valued at 120K when i bought it. They are now valued at around 100k.

moondog · 07/07/2011 19:54

Bastard.And he can do it because he has been allowed to by the bloody government.Cashing in on people's misery.

HHLimbo · 07/07/2011 21:50

Hahaha these Tories are idiots.

TheFalcon · 07/07/2011 22:41

If anyone is responsible for the rise in BTL it is Labour. It is they who fostered a boom built on house prices increasing.

HHLimbo · 07/07/2011 23:33

swings and roundabouts.

I wish they would do something useful for once, the stupid lazy toads.

Fifis25StottieCakes · 08/07/2011 09:42

Ive just had the council news through this morning. 2,400 new homes are being built on 19 sites across Gateshead. 300 in my town. Good news Smile

TheHumanCatapult · 08/07/2011 10:13

considers moving to Gateshead

Fifis25StottieCakes · 09/07/2011 18:35

Apparently there will be 50,000 new homes built across the country. Lets hope this is a sign that the building is starting. Lets also hope they remove the right to buy scheme.

TheFalcon · 09/07/2011 18:38

Building homes isn't a long term panacea, we are only a small island. As long as immigration continues unabated and women keep knocking out more than 2 children on a regular basis, housing will always be a problem.

Fifis25StottieCakes · 09/07/2011 18:56

I think housing is one of the main problems at the moment, lack of affordable housing. Many of the council properties are now owned by BTL lanlords, People in low paid jobs are paying a fortune out for housing and being left with nothing. I also dont think it is an option to police how many kids people have. I dont think they really need to build as many now houses. The ex stock which is up for repossession should be bought back by the council to replenish their housing stock.

I totally agree with you on immigration though.

TheFalcon · 09/07/2011 21:41

It IS an option to reform the benefit system to incentivise having no or few kids and disincentivise having loads.

APieOfButter · 10/07/2011 10:49

Houses like mine sell for just under 100 grand. We pay an unusually low rent of 595 a month and the laws mean tenants have very little security of tenure. I honestly would rent all my life, and happily, if rents were a bit lower and we had security and the right to enjoy our home, eg decorate, have pets, hang pictures. Obviously within reason, but surely on a long let, the landlord owns the investment and the building, but it is our home?

Paul88 · 10/07/2011 11:06

Bring back fair rents - that will solve it all.

FruitSaladIsNotPudding · 14/07/2011 17:59

I think housing benefit needed to be cut. But rents need to be regulated at the same time. All high housing benefits acheived was to push prices up for everybody. Crazy.

Journey · 17/07/2011 19:53

Agree with emsies. A £500 cap is the equivalent of earning 33K. It's funny how people who actually go out and earn this amount are just meant to cope on this and not complain, meanwhile, people on benefits get to moan that it isn't enough! Very ironic.

Ryoko · 18/07/2011 20:23

It's all part of the Tory plan that they have had all along since the late 70's.
They don't give a fuck about people loosing homes they are capitalists in the true sense of the word and capitalism is evil.

Everything goes up in price but wages don't rise, the top 10% own 90% of everything, you can't have the rich without the poor, they don't care if you are living in a cardboard box as long as they can continue to rake in the cash off the back of the workers. don't care about the rents being high as log as there is someone there to take the place of those being evicted even if that is 15 people from Eastern Europe getting shoehorned into a 3 bed shared accommodation house.

Meanwhile as they and there rich land owning mates, fiddle there way into getting more and more cash off the poor, via changing laws meant to protect the people, corporate fraud and creating new "terror" laws to oppress any decanters, they send out the smoke screen to try and throw us all off, the smoke screens of blaming the scroungers, the work shy, the immigrants, the unions and so on, all to distract us from seeing the truth and uniting against them, divided and conquer.

Nothing will change until we unit and say no more.

dontwantanickname · 21/07/2011 20:56

I wrote to my MP to raise the issue of the discrepancy between LHA rates and actual rent costs, in my area (herefordshire) I explained the substandard accomodation I, my fiancee(WORKING but reduced hours due to govt cuts) and my children live in and that I am disabled therefore can't rent a top floor flat with no lift which is what constitutes the very very lowest rents in the area. I also asked if there was any government plans to encourage ll's to accept HB as when I was made homeless in Jan 2011, only one property in my 2 month search would accept HB, so i had to take it, despite the fact I cant use the upstairs and its so badly maintained we will freeze for sure in winter.

I got a reply from Lord Freud, Minister for Welfare Reform. here is what he wrote:

Dear Jesse Norman MP
Your letter has been forwarded to this department for response. Miss 'dontwantanickname' writes regarding her housing situation and her concerns about housing benefit reforms

The LHA is a way of calculating HB for tenants in the deregulated private rented sector. The rates are based on the area in which a person lives and their household size. This ensures that tenants in similar circumstances in the same area receove the same amount of financial support for their housing costs. However, in some areas, the LHA has given rise to rates which are excessively high. For example, in central London, rates for a three bedroom property have exceeded £750 per week and , exceptionally, £2,000 per week for five bedroom properties. This is far more than most working families with average incomes could afford.

It is therefore essential that we take steps to control the cost of HB, which is forecast to reach £21.5 billion this financial year and if left unreformed will reach £24 billion in 2014/15. Rates in the private rented sector have increased to unmanageable levels, and many people have been able to enter into rental commitments that even people earning a reasonable wage would not consider. People receiving benefit should have to make the same......(end of page, next page starts with a new paragraph ie this sentence is left unfinished)
Local authorities can make Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP)to people whose benefit falls short of their rent. We are trebling our contribution to DHP budget to allow local authorities to give additional support where they consider it is needed. For example, they might provide help to give tenants time to find alternative accomodation, or provide longer term support for those who are less able to move. In addition, we have allocated a further £50 million over the Spending Review Period, bringing the total to £190 million, to support the implementation of the housing benefit changes. WE expect that it will be used to provide help to people who need help and advice with housing:for example, by enabling local authorities to take a proactive role in working with people to negotiate down their rents. It will also help towards additional costs for people who may have to move.

Some people will be able to re-negotiate their rent with their landlords or make up small shortfalls, we estimate that in around 80 per cent of cases, the shortfall between their benefit and their rent resulting from these measures will be LESS THAN £10 PER WEEK. To assist tenants with negotiating affordable rents, we are temporarily widening the local authority discretion to pay HB direct to the landlord if it would help the tenant secure a new tenancy or remain in their current home at a reduced rent. We are working closely with local authorities to ensure this provision is used in very specific circumstances where landlords are reducing their rent to affordable levels.

Yours sincerely,
David
Lord Freud
Minister for welfare reform

SO.....(phew!) there it is. I certainly am paying a LOT more than £10 a week in rent top up, and I would like to meet the 80% who are paying a tenner in rent top up or less. We are not living in a fabulous house that the working only dream of (remember, my partner works, and as soon as I am well enough, I will be applying for anything and everything. We are living in 'substandard' (words of council inspector) housing, with the number of bedrooms we are entitled to and no more, and as i said it was the only place that would take HB, so had no choice in the matter.
No comment about any plans to encourage lls to accept HB :(
Have asked for a discretionary payment application form twice, still waiting.