Just had a letter from my HA about the housing benefit changes. Some people are gonna be in the shit. It's madness

[TheOriginalNutcracker]

This is what the letter said

'Universal credit will be paid in arrears as a single monthly payment, meaning there will be a five week gap in receiving your benefits when you move over to Universal Credit. Therefore we strongly advise all of our customers to over pay their rent by a small amount each month. This means that when you switch to universal credit you will be prepared for the 5 week gap in receiving your universal credit and your rent account won't fall into arrears. '

So basically then, people will be in arrears right from the off unless they can over pay beforehand. A lot of people I know, won't be able to afford to overpay.

Also whilst we are on the subject, can I just ask, if tax credits is going to be paid with the HB as one big payment ?? What about child benefit ??

No! That's ridiculous!
FFS Who on Tax Credits/ HB or any other benefit can afford to live on nothing for 5 weeks?? It's a very sick joke surely?

(As far as i'm aware all benefits will be paid at the same time..)

I think the powers that be don't care if poor people have nothing to live on tbh.

Thanks for giving us a heads up. I will save the pennies, not that they will go very far

what the actual....fuuuuuuuu...

oh god that is horrible.

When is it being rolled out near you OP?

A 5 week gap? Thats terrible. Am I right in thinking that some people receive benefits weekly and will therefore go from that to zero for 5 weeks before receiving anything? How are those people expected to live?
I can't imagine how difficult this must be for people receiving most or all of their income through benefits.

Its fucking nutso, isn't it.

Its not even like you could manage if you budgeted carefully or ate lentils or whatever some condescending twats will no doubt suggest. A week's benefits is hardly enough for a week - there is simply no way it could stretch to cover a 5 weeks gap.

Apparently Ian Duncan Smith thinks it will encourage the poor to learn to budget better, encouraging them to take up all those fabulous well paid and secure jobs out there.

Yeah well IDS is frankly a great big ignorant dick, isn't he.

Budgeting is all well and good but you can only stretch money so far.

I've got a single parent friend, she gets £130 every week plus housing benefit. Someone please tell me how exactly she is meant to make that £130 last for 5 weeks ??

Guidance here on 'alternative payment arrangements' . It's quite clear that these will be very exceptional.

Are they actually trying to drive people to despair? I think IDS really does think that most benefit claimants could go and get a job tomorrow doesn't he? I work with a chronically ill population, many of whom receive benefits. They CANNOT work. What are we supposed to do when they start to starve?

Queen my thoughts entirely. I work with chronically unwell people too and am dreading the impact of these reforms.

5 weeks?!! The Condems really don't have a clue do they . It won't affect me but I feel sorry for everyone they're about to screw over.

So this is going to apply to anyone receiving tax credits too isn't it when they get switched over.

it will potentially be a big problem even for working households if they depend on WTC and CTC.

are there any definitive guides about when it's all happening?

Ridiculous to expect people on benefits to be able to save ahead for 5 weeks' worth of outgoings. What's going to happen when people can't feed their kids 2 weeks in?

I am good at budgetting but even i couldnt make my last benefit payment last 5 weeks.

Universal credit will include hb, ctc, wtc. Child benefit will be paid seperately.

IDS has been told that making payments monthly or every four weeks will effect and harm people - he just ignore the advice and carries on blithely. Even Frank Field has backed of from IDS universal credit

IDS should perhaps concentrate on George Osborne budgeting which is not wonderful....

This is insanity.

The only good thing about it is that people will hopefully realise upfront just how ill thought out this all is and vote the fuckers out.

I predict a riot ...

When they tried to bring in the poll-tax, senior civil servants warned them it wasn't workable in the format they were pushing through. They didn't listen.

It's obvious they haven't learnt a thing.

Sometimes I find myself wondering if the Tories are actually evil or just totally incompetent. I'm erring towards totally incompetent today.

This is madness. People will get into debt who have managed to budget well until this point.

I agree. And the list of people that the housing benefit spare room thing will affect just keeps growing. I'm up to:

Recently bereaved families
Families with a disabled member whose medical condition requires equipment and/or a seperate room because of very disturbed sleep. This includes patients on home dialysis who use a seperate room for their home treatment instead of medicalising their bedroom which may be shared with a partner.
Anybody who has a medical condition which disturbs their sleep so that a couple (for example) would sleep in seperate rooms.
Any family with somebody serving in the armed forces who nevertheless has only the family home as their 'home'
Foster parents who have a room only periodically occupied.

Have I missed anybody? Should I apply for a job with the government?

There will be riots. Which is why they are rolling it out bit by bit across the country I think

Hybrid families where step-children stay half the week.

Couples where one member is over pension credit age but the other is not.

It's going to be a bumper time for loan sharks

I suspect a lot of people will have to "budget" by borrowing at extortionate rates, and will never catch up.

Wonder how much interest that cash will earn for them in that 5w

At the moment unemployment benefits are paid a week or two behind. Is this going to be the same for Universal Credit.

For example the first month you would only get a fortnights worth of money rather than a months and then the next month you would get a full months.