Send them to Hull: London to house it's homeless up north

[boredandrestless]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2103298/Send-Hull-London-house-homeless-north-save-money-rent.html

Just seen this on a friend's facebook feed. What do other's think of this?

What's this whole 'those who work' crap?

This policy will negatively impact those who work in poorer areas such as Hull.

What's so different about those people that it's OK to dump people from London on the areas? Is there work less valuable? Are they some sort of sacrificial non-Londoner lambs?

or does working only count if you do it in England's capital city?

Here, yes housing is cheap: but if you earn £15k PA you are lucky. DH used to be a transport manager for TNT: he went for a job managing an entire fleet a few years back and that was what he was offered to work 6 days a week 6 - 6! luckily he could keep commuting to TNT so was able to say no but it's not a case of cheaper houses = easy to afford, the wages match the local rents.

Boredand I agree about affordable housing.

I have at least 2 with autism. DS4 (obviously due a diagnosis at some point) has his first appointment next week; it only took 18 months but that was only becuase I had a breakdown and we became classed as an emergency. Despite this, there is no help at all for families like mine already- we don;t even have a social worker- and ds1 was blessed to get only one of TWO places at comp level for kids with HFA, unless ds3 is so lucky he will be completely without a place at 11 as he isn't severe enough for SLD but can't go to MS so part from a 1% chance of getting a Base place....

but yeah we can absorb lots of people. like, honest guv. 30k on LHA waiting list, a grand total of 1 house listed I can find currently vacant accepting HB claimants as tenants 9then only part HB and not self employed)... 3 week wait at GPs to see your doctor..... different school admission criteria here based purely on catchment means ds2's next school has a whopping 500 more students than it should take (not allowed to refuse kids within the catchment area).... 20% unemployment.... local church (only local) school has a £109k deficit.....

I like it here; but it's no cheap rental utopia that can just keep absorbing people to keep London for the naice folk.

Oh and if our LL pulls out we will be forced to move away into the Valleys.

never worked at all? You sure people? DH still does! But it is self employed, which negates most landlords and means we do still need a little HB help whilst we grow the business more.

I worked until ds3 was born and ds1's ASD became apparent- charity manager, often two jobs. DH did 2 jobs for years, nights for TNT then the building blocks of the business in daytime: when he graduates in June he can really go for it with the business finally. So he will have a degree; I have a degree and have almost completed my MA. I own a business which I can;t do anything in right now due to the boys but I still pay NI and keep it registered just because I feel better for that. I will either go for that or find employment later this year, a Dh can work from home and be here for the SN taxies etc. It's taken YEARS to try and get to a stage where we can potentially both pay taxes earn and now weare of course faced with massive unemployment which will make it harder but that's life.

We do not fit assumptions that are made of us and it drives me efffing nuts when people think we fit some lazy stereotype because things went awry (autism and Dh being made redundant a few years back). Genuinely beginning to wonder why we bothered trying as if not we'd have a secure tenancy, not much less money and no more flack if we'd never bothered.

"I've always moved to where I could get work - it wouldn't occur to me to try and stay somewhere if I couldn't get work"

yeah and sending out "social problems" to less desirable expensive areas is forcing people to do the EXACT OPPOSITE, i.e. move to where there's less jobs and prospects and more oversubscribed schools!

Like where my town has sent a whole load of theirs, they forced people to move from an area on multiple bus routes and train links and walking distance to potential employers.... to an area with a twice a day granny bus! It is nothing like you (or me for that matter) moving to where the work is! It's moving to where the work ISN'T.

Hasnt Hull got enough problems with unemployment as it is?

I've name changed btw!! Not that I'm ashamed of my little town or owt.

Oh and those people forced to move to another town... will also have moved from family potentially who could help with childcare for interviews and work...

Why don't they move some government type jobs to other areas in the country or provide massive tax incentives for employers to base themselves somewhere other than the South East. Reducing unemployment elsewhere in the country may encourage people to move themselves, following the work opportunities, and potentially frees up housing in the South East.

Am a bit hacked off with how London/Home Counties obsessed the Tories are in their thinking.

I think the point of the arguement isn't necessarily about busing out loads of people to Hull but that people in receipt of housing benefits have to consider that there is limitations to where they choose to live. I'm giving Westmisnster as the example, it's a prime central London location with corresponding high rents, i'm not advocating uprooting people hundreds of miles from family/support etc but there's nothing wrong with the central premise that they will now have to consider a cheaper zone 3-4 area instead.

You can get from Statford, Bow, Leyton, Leytonstone (all zone 3) into central London in 30-45mins and this still allows proximity to family, work, jobs etc and commuting times of an hour+ aren't uncommon in London

this is not about moving people around the same town. This is about moving people to completely different towns.

and "sprinkling" social housing, a little in each area of a town, prevents ghettoisation and all the problems that come with that for all of us!

Basically councils with money to do so can pay councils that are strapped to take their problems away from them. That's all it is!

Maybe the article is knee jerk and reactionary, i'm sure for people with dependents such as children at school, jobs in the local area etc, elderly relatives to care for they wont be bussed out to Hull but given alternative choices in the outer suburbs/towns wherever they live.

Reduce you seem to assume that most people in receipt of housing benefit are a 'social problem' and will be automatically detrimental to the new area by associating them specifically with ghettoisation and all that it implies. Your patronising the very people your threads are purposing to defend

I dont think its a good idea for various reasons, seems unfair to those sent there and those already there.

One thing though, I can understand totally people not wanting 'incomers' because of the impact on job availability and local services eg schools/healthcare etc.

But why the hell does everyone treat London as a free for all? yet it doesnt seem to work the other way round.

I know and have known people from all over the country [I live London] not got a problem with their coming here, just it seems a bit hypocritical when people get so territorial over these areas outside of London.

Im buggered if id leave London to go up north when London has so many residents that didnt start out here!

London is so overcrowded because everyone comes here from everywhere else.

This has been going on for years

"Maybe the article is knee jerk and reactionary, i'm sure for people with dependents such as children at school, jobs in the local area etc, elderly relatives to care for they wont be bussed out to Hull but given alternative choices in the outer suburbs/towns wherever they live."

No they won't, that's the problem. There is no organised relocation going on. Just cutting their benefit and to hell with them.

As I recall from local news Hull has the highest youth unemployment in the area

It also has one of the poorest records for schools. Primaries are great, high schools, terrible. Good teachers dont want to work there. Its a lethargic place. Not everyone but alot of people there are set in their ways. They cant cope with outsiders coming in, not mentally or financially. It used to be great but now its just full of pound shops and, even they are closing. Its very sad. It used to be a great night out but, even the pubs are closing. Hull Council has wasted money for more years than I can remember. Its never going to be up and coming, unfortunatly.

It does have two really good theatres though and, thats about it.

And, I hate slagging my home town off

"Reduce you seem to assume that most people in receipt of housing benefit are a 'social problem' and will be automatically detrimental to the new area by associating them specifically with ghettoisation and all that it implies."

No I don't, it is in commas because that is what the councils who buy housing space in other councils see social housing as, and then they send people who could and do contribute to society out to a ghetto where they CANNOT contribute as much, not that they DO NOT WANT TO or have the capacity to, bu they CAN NOT! see my example from where I live - where people were moved to another town to a "council area" with sod all transport links. And "dealing with social problems" in my town is how the COUNCIL described the process.

I've seen it in action, and to be honest I think I'ld find it pretty hard to not develop a "social problem" if I was moved from where I live now to where my ex neighbours were moved to with no hope of work or my kids going to school with any sort of social mix etc etc

they also called it "cleaning up the area"

bakingaddict just incase you don't realise, that's the councils words, not mine, and I don't approve!

plus my local council seems to think social housing full stop is a "social problem", hence the paying someone else to make some of it disseappear

oh and baking addict, make no mistake: councils do not exercise this for areas where their social housing is working well! The ones they ship off to vast ghettos are the ones where there are "social problems" (then they sell the properties and pat themselves on the back at how good they are at "regenerating" deprived areas )

and the "social problems" need support and hope more than anyone, not LESS access to everything!

another issue with the practicalities, they do it be selling all council owned properties (to landlords) and "providing" that section of their service in another town, So here where we have NO council lets because those people were moved, we still have people living here who recieve HB in the same general spaces as before but now they are at the mercy of a few private landlords.

so they move their "problems" out, sell the property, to landlords who rent it to other people in the same position who have naff all choice but to take the crap treatment as tennants as a small handfull of landlords own most of the flats and bedsits in the area.

Its no good for anyone, it just makes the numbers do pretty things in the short term

I wonder if Hull was specifically even mentioned?

Manchester & Liverpool did this yrs ago with Rhyl & look what has happened there.