Goodbye Spongers!

[ShakesPear]

Anyone else thrilled that the family on benefits living in a £12,000 pcm in London house paid by us will no longer be getting that benefit?

In fact I wonder if the cap on unemployment benefit is to high!

I am very concerned about this cap on benefits - the £500 a week thing.

I have read that this policy will not save much money but will affect thousands and thousands of families, mainly living in london/south east. The govt are basically going to force people/families out of the areas where they live, to other parts of the country where rents are cheaper. Those places will presumably be places where there are not many opportunities. We're talking forcing poor families into ghettos in areas which already have high unemployment and problems.

What worries me about this:
breaking up communities
children having a lot of upheaval, being removed from schools etc
people losing their support networks eg grandparents down the road could do a bit of childcare when parent got a job, now that option is removed
affect on mental health of people being removed from support networks and family etc

Plus what's the impact going to be on the communities receiving these families? They demographic will change, are there plans for that?

The whole thing makes me feel sick TBH, I think it's disgusting. IME areas with a mix of people fare best all round. Putting the poor people in areas with no work - so they will never get out - is terrible. removing these people from the sight of the wealthier people so they don't have to think about them - well we all know where that idea's from. People fear the unfamiliar and that breeds all sorts of unpleasant emotions. Take the poor away and put them somewhere else, and the torys will be free to utterly clobber them, as they won't have to feel guilty, as they will be "other" people, a subclass, over there, brought it on themselves, deserve everything they get. Terrifying.

IASNT I said similar on the other thread

Take people from their community and you ahve to fund state care, you egt mor MH from isolationa nd mroe marriage break ups which then + less employability; kids who either move schools or get transported in- at cost (eg if schools full or thee is SN).

Silly idea that might well up the % of Tory voters in certain boroughs (what? who said that? Me? nooo...) but can't savce very much money and will cause untol human pain.

I mean, een Boris dislikes it.

isnt your post is pretty much the thesis of a book by lysnsey hanley , it is called 'estates' (has a long subtitle which i have forgotten'

v v v good

read it and get angry

You know, when people go into care and the cost falls to the state, it can easily (and often tops) cost the state £2k a week (based on a figure for ASD that is several years old, I do have a ref somewhere although will only look if people demand).

Usually care is carried out in house by friends, family, neighbours.

On Mum's estate at least 7/10 houses has an eledrly eprson in it.

How much, I wonder, will actually be saved?

(PS people relaise that many on HB are pensioners yes? Pensioners perhaps like my aprents who lost both pensions in pensiosn scandals, dad is working PT past retirementa ge but finding it too hard ehalth wise and will ahev to claim HB only becuase of said pension collapse)

feckless so and so. How dare he pay into pensions for decades, eh?

OP is so vile and silly that it's not really worth responding to that, but absolutely agree with chibi and others that the disparity between wages and house prices is a major part of the problem. And that the beneficiaries of housing benefit are not the tenants but the landlords. They are the ones having their mortgages paid by the state, and often all their maintenance and rental managed by the state too, so it really is unearned income. Yet somehow it is not them but their tenants that are inevitably labelled "spongers".

Yes sancti I was thinking about PND earlier and how this will impact (removal of support networks) and potentially the knock on effect this might have on the children.

And re your other comment about voting. I don't know whether it was deliberate but on the news/newsnight yesterday they have a piece about how thousands of families will have to move out of london and other expensive cities. Then straight after they had a failed tory candidate saying that he hadn't won the seat because (i kid you not) Labour had "moved lots of people on benefits into the area and obviously they vote Labour".

That gave me pause for thought. Apart from the preposterous idea that Labour made people on benefits live in cities , it is true that cities are generally red and countryside blue. Now they want to move people around.... Hmmmmmmmm.

'they have a piece about how thousands of families will have to move out of london and other expensive cities.'

And then have no job.

IT is perfectly possible for a full time worker with children in the SE to be getting more than £25k in benefits. Coming out of exactly the same pots as those who aren't working get.

I'm not totally convinced by the 50,000 people affected. I suspect it will be more - and worst of all I fear it will hit working low income families harder than it will hit those not working.

amothersplaceisinthewrong, love your idea of a maximum wage. After all, if you're having a benefits cap, why not a salaries cap? Will bring in so much more money.

I grew up in a small town in the Highlands that is ridiculously cheap to live. However, there are no jobs and I would say 70% of people who now live there are pensioners.

Yes, and the ridiculously cheap rents but no jobs soon becomes not so cheap when you have to run at least one car and drive miles and miles to get to work or to access the most basic of services.

I cannot wait for the spongers to be booted out out of high cost westminster houses....costing 5000 per month rent...sounds extremely good to me.

And where exactly would you like them to go, Blosi? Shall we build a poorhouse for them?

The fun thing about people gloating like the OP is that if you make a mental note of their name and wait a bit you're likely to see "oh my god I've been made redundant and ... I can't live on that!!!it's not fair!!!"

We're seeing it already with the child benefit thing "oh no I meant the poor should have less not ME!!"

:o

Can I just point out that landlords do have to buy and maintain the property. They don't get housing benefit payments from tenants having plucked the house out of the air. Also HB tenants may not pay other bills or be able to afford to take care of the property (e.g inadequate heating causing damp etc.).

So it's not really fair to point the finger and say they are just massively profiteering.

Cinnanmontoast

what about them living somewhere further out of London at say £1000/month and commuting like most people to work.

The other £4000/month could then be used for people who actually needed help.

Ok, Siasi, so if you lose your job and live in London you'd be happy to be shipped out of town by the council? What if you'd been born there and grown up there and were part of the community? How would you feel to be sent to a place where you knew no one? And your children would be uprooted and forced to go to another school?

Whomovedmychocolate

The housing benefit system is a scam that has been utilized by scumlords to obtain higher than market rentals for properties. The tenants don't benefit. The wider effect has been to push up private rental costs by creating an artificial floor in many areas of London, raising the cost of living for everybody. So HB has to be reduced to allow rentals more generally to fall.

Hopefully be setting a maxmium rent of £500/week or the 30th percentile of rental costs in the area, we can create a negative feedback loop that might drive down these rents.

BTL speculators already get unfair taxable benefits through lower CGT and being able to offset rent vs mortgage costs.

Siasi - scumlords - my that's an emotive term.

Given the choice between having private tenants in a house and HB tenants the vast majority of landlords would prefer private tenants.

Yes there are rogues. I agree those rogues cause localised pressures by offering homes to people for whom it's a last resort, but these are the minority and to tar all landlords with the same brush is frankly quite insulting.

Incidentally, I think you'l find the taxable benefits are no longer available and in terms of offsetting rent against mortgage costs - unless there is a rising housing market this is a zero sum game.

And another thing, Siasi, the onus is on the council to house them - the responsibility can't just be passed on to another area. And in that area no doubt there would already be waiting lists for housing. Do they get to queue jump?

Cinnamontoast

I'm sure it would feel bad but we can't justify paying £60000/year in HB for one family when this could help for 5+ families. Getting £60k/year rent is like a salary of £92k or four times the national average. The money just goes to the landlord anyway!

How many working taxpayers would like to live in a house with a rental of £5k/month for free? I would.

"Hopefully be setting a maxmium rent of £500/week or the 30th percentile of rental costs in the area, we can create a negative feedback loop that might drive down these rents."

Hopefully and might. Useful words those. If the HB was forced down then I'd be surprised if rent would actually follow, would save the landlords having to say "no DSS" is all. In an ideal world, yes, but as someone on HB and who is currently (desperately) searching for a home I can already tell you that the amount of HB you get rarely matches the market price as it is.

Chibi I agree with you completly. It's low wages and high cost of housing that causes the real problems.

Ms bucket. I'll just have a cup of tea with one sweetener. Thanks.

Siasi, I agree the costs are dreadful but a) those cases are very rare and b) there should be affordable housing available for people who need it. Remember council houses?