Council tenants are workshy spongers, let's kick them out of their homes.

[hecate]

apparently

The number of out of work people in council housing has risen dramatically and perhaps looking for work should be a condition of a council tenancy, according to Ms Flint. Why oh why are so many people in council accomodation not working. What's wrong with them? If they don't get a job they should be kicked out of their council house.

Well.

I'm no expert but I would like to hazard a guess that it is because there is such an extreme LACK OF SOCIAL HOUSING that only those people in the most desperate circumstances ever get anywhere near the top of the list, and these are the very people who are unable to work due to illness, disability, caring for disabled children etc etc.

Yet another kick people when they are down, attack the most vulnerable in the hope it's a vote winner, without actually looking what the problem REALLY is.

it's ironic that those people in council houses, on benefits are scroungers, but those MPs pay they're sons £30,000 a year, only get a ticking off!

Can you imagine how hard the law would be on a single mum, who had fiddled the benefits system and got that much for nowt?

it's one rule for us and one rule for them.

( the ones hwo choose not to)
the intersting thing is that a lot fo them develkop depression in order to get incapcaity alowance( or whatever) so then they cant work

tis a mindset

I do agree there is a big difference between the genuine need for benefits and the people who DO make it a lifestyle choice.
YES there are A LOT of work shy spongers out there and it pisses me off that we work and pay taxes to pay for other people to knock out children left right and center with no means to support them, or spend there time in the pub or watching day time T.V till its time to go cash the giro,

Someone on here had posted that hew Ex was on benefits, not paying for their children but could afford to go abroad on holiday, when I questioned how he could afford this if he was living on benefits I was called a bigot.

But I stand by what I have said and always said, the benefit system is there to help people short term who for what ever reason and not doing so well, it is NOT the life style choice some chose to make.
However not every sponger lives on a council estate.

One of the reasons I split with xp was because he wanted to be a benefits scrounger, claiming that he had a back problem. The reason he wanted to do this is because every single member of his family claim for something or other, some justified but most not.

The way he saw it, his siblings got to sit at home all day, but had money to go out for a drink, decorate their house etc etc.

His family once fell out with me because I refused to say that xp didn't live with me and claim benefits. They said I was selfish for making him work when there was no need.

I told him time and time again that I really didn't care about the money side of it, for me it was a question of morals and self respect. I didn't want my kids growing up thinking that their dad being a lay about who exaggerated his medical problems was the way to get on in life.

I can see how it is possible for people who don't work, to get into the mind set that they can't work, that it's too hard etc, for their self esteem to become so low that they don't see the point, but yes that is an excuse.

I would like a job so that I am financially better off yes, but mainly because I don't want what my life is now, to seem appealing to any of my kids, because it isn't appealing when you are actually living it.

This isn't addressing the perceived problem of fit, but idle people claiming benefits 'cause it's about JSA. The actively workshy are savvy with the system and don't claim JSA because you have to be actively seeking employment, fit for work etc to get it. They claim incapacity benefit instead and develop a condition undiscernable to the naked eye, like depression.

My sister (40% tax payer) had to stop working while she was having chemo.
Her husband piece of shit she was married to up and left and sis had to pay off a lot of debt he had run up.
She ended up with no money, and had to try and claim benefits, after filling in enough forms to fell a rain forest and wait 6 week yes six weeks while her claim was being investigated she was given the grand sum of £44.00 per fortnight, She had to go to the benefit office and while she was there saw the drunk and her social worker pick up an emergency payment, the bloke coming off of heroin collect a payment to get a washing machines, as the methadone was making him sweat, she got talking to a 15 year old with one in a pram and one on the way,and an endless stream of dead beats come and go.

Thank god she is well now and working again and paying in her 40% to keep these people going. And the saddest thing is the system is failing the people who need it most.
Makes you proud to be British

Xp is doing exactly that now Fio. He has a job, but now he has moved his rent is more and he doesn't want to pay it, so is deliberatly becoming more and more unreliable in his job (not going, being late) so that next time they have to lay some off (agency contract), he will be one of them.

He denies it , but I know that is what he is doing.

one section of my family are now 3rd generation never to have worked.alcoholic gf, alcoholic father and 3 daughters, eldest 21 with 7 kids between them.
daughters have no intention of ever working, don't think they have social skills to pull it off. two dd have depression, incapacitated i presume.
they have been brought up to think they have a right to everything.
Their mother has also never worked, between them they occupy 5 houses and a flat, all council.
their mother should now be encouraged to go out to work, all the children are gone, if she wont then there should be repercussions or that's how 3 of her daughters will continue for the next 30 years.the cycle should be broken.

I am on benifits and we both are stay at home parents. Why?? Because I have 2 disabled kids. Dh used to work but when DD1 was disgnosed we realised that life was going to get a lot harder for one parent (ie. me) to deal with. We live in a HA house and managed ok on benifits, but only because DS1 and DD1 get DLA and we get carers allowence. I wish that DH would find a job sometimes (when he gets on my nerves lol), but I realise that I would never manage on my own, with all the appointments DS and DD1 have, as well as looking after Dd2 and DS2.
I hate going to the benifits office, and try to avoid at all costs, it is full of junkies and drunks. I have been there and seen the same people in there week after week asking for more money 'because they have lost their purse or wallet and it contained all their benifit money'
If I was told to go to work, I would struggle to get a job that would allow me time off for all the appointments.

So how is this going to work then? Will one get "points" for having worked all their adult life?

Or is it just a case of you idle b**tards, get a fecking job? Will it matter if you're trying? Or if you refused a job because you couldnt physically do the hours?

I live in a council house, have been out of work twice...does redundancy count? Or will we be punished for that also? "sorry you lost your job love, but you cant have this house you've lived in for 7 years now because you dont work"...we dont care how many thousands you've spent on it because when you leave, we'll rip out your nice things and put our own wank stuff in..yours will be in the skip outside for the neighbours to pinch".

Does anyone know that's what they do if you leave? They rip out everything you've done and replace it with poorly fitted council stuff. My 2k kitchen would end up in a skip to be replaced by one sink cupboard and one wall cupboard, because that's what we're entitled to apparently. When I moved here that's all I had. I kept my plates in the living room pantry.

Why dont we look at what the council waste instead? Why dont we look at the brand new doors, cupboards, plasterboards, baths, sinks, etc that are surplus to requirements and are left brand new, outside our houses to rot. Not to mention the time spent by employees who will not make an appointment to do a repair but drive down to your house to stick a note through the door to do a repair when they have been told you are at work?

And I feel awfully ill, have many problems at work, posted about it tonight in fact...but cant just give it up, im stuck. Even more stuck now. Cheers, take my home from me too.

it is all very well them saying this, but the people who will actually decide who gets evicted will be the judges. and unless they completely fetter judicial discretion in the legislation (anything is possible with this lot - but unlikely I suspect) I can't see the judges playing ball.

I own my own house and if dh and I didn't have a job we'd lose our house too......

Of course there are genuine cases who should receive all the help in the world. The flip side is there are people who take the piss. People who take take take and put nothing back in, even when perfectly capable of doing so.

SGK this is my whole point, if we weeded out the low life and scroungers there would be more resources for the people who do need the help, the ones it was set up to help in the first place.
I have no problem with my taxes going to help a family like yours, I have a massive problem with some bloke not paying child support, playing the system and sodding off on holiday.

If the people milking the system were stopped the people who needed help would get better help as there would be more money available.

Surely they would be better off reviewing the situations of those who over time have improved their disposable income beyond a certain threshold and could then be assisted to move into the private rental market or part-ownership schemes thus releasing social housing for those in greater need. Although can see that might in itself be a disincentive to work. However I do think the days of having an indefinite entitlement to social housing are numbered whatever criteria are applied.

When you live in a council property and dont work, your rent and council tax are paid.

That's it.

You still have to pay gas, electric, water, tv licence, phone bill, contents ins blah blah. You dont have free carpets, flooring or furniture. You dont have your decorating paid for. A lot of council properties are also unfit for habitation, which is something you wont get to hear about often.

I agree, some people take the piss, I know one such person who thinks the world owes her a living....but why punish everyone for that?

I think chucking them out of their homes is a pointless exercise - the council is not in the business of making anyone homeless, and besides it simply pushes teh problems elsewhere.

But I do think they should be given work for the council to do. There are countless jobs atht people could do that fit in with kids. Dinner ladies, lollipop people, maintenance men, gardeners, painting snd decorating, running youth clubs, helping with surestart centres/community centres etc etc.

It's about having a puropse. I need to do xyz to keep a roof over my family's head.

In 2 parent families this is not unreasonable imo.

i used to lived next door to an alcholic, it was horrible, the council wouldn't help me, they said they couldn't. she was on benifits, and would spend the day drunk. her daugther was taken into care, her junkie friends swould knock on the door and offer us drugs dh went to the police and they wouldn't do anything either. We ended up moving to get away from her.

council houses are so nice arn't they

I think that flint must be playing devil's advocate and she is certainly getting a reaction off Mumsnet.

I think that more needs to be done to get perfectly healthy people to be more active for THEIR sakes. Its also necessary to look at how the family has fallen into a trap.

Nowadays children do not get to read to a teacher at school on a one to one basis. The arguement is that it does not require teacher training to listen to a child read and many teachers think its a waste of their time.

Imagine you have a parent who cannot read, how on earth can they be expected to listen to their child read. Is it any wonder you end up with a generation of unemployable illerates. The chances of a child learning to read with an illerate mother is about the same as me teaching my son Eyptian.

I also think that some schools have too many children from social housing. In my area there is 40% social housing. There is also a really high number of children with special needs and its hard for the teacher to cope. Either schools in deprived areas need the funding to have smaller classes or rich state schools need to be forced to take their fair share of SEN children.

Its a balance between carrot and stick. I think that the governant needs to raise the confidence of those who are long term unemployed and their families. They are trying to do it in my area with a surestart children's centre.

I live in an ex council house and my house is fanastic.

i live in a new build HA house and its lovely, but I will never own it, and I would never buy a HA or council house (if I ever could afford it), purely because I know how many people need houses. My grandparents live in a 5 bedroom house, a friend of my parents live in a 4 bed house, it drives me mad thinking about them in these huge houses and families that really need them