Newham Council

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17821018 article Ridiculous actions by the Newham Council, exaggerating to make a political point. If there aren't any properties in striking distance of Newham that can be rented for £1200/month there are certainly towns with affordable accommodation a lot nearer than Stoke on Trent.

article

Well I'm not hot on geography in London but a quick Rightmove search for properties within 3 miles of Newham between £900 & £1250 per month shows plenty of properties and many 2, even some 3 bed ones.

So it does seem at this stage a bit weird to want to move them to Stoke.

As predicted by many experts in the housing sector.

Looking at the number of available rentals tells you nothing as many landlords can't take benefit claimants.

There is a shortage of affordable housing across the country, it's quite possible they may need to be housed a long way from the capital.

Whilst I'm sure that this is pure party politics from the red team trying to cause as much mischief as possible for the coalition and will never be allowed to happen, I don't think that it is altogether a bad idea.

Disclaimer - I ACCEPT NOT EVERYONE IN RECEIPT OF HOUSING BENEFIT IS LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYED.

If you have long term unemployed (3 years and above for example) living in some of the most high demand locations in the country, it makes sense to free up as much cheap housing as possible for London's workers rather than have them constantly squeezed out and marginalised having to rely on long commutes just to get to work to do low paid jobs. If the long term unemployed are going to sit on their arses all day anyway, then they may as well be sat on their arses in a cheaper part of the country.

I was born in Newham, and lived there for half my life, so feel qualified to comment. It is an area with high unemployment and poverty. The successful Olympic bid has not resulted in the drastic change in prospects which was hoped for, and that doesn't look likely to change in the next 3 months. Areas of Newham have very poor transport infrastructure, again despite the above, making lack of gainful employment in the immediate vicinity all the more apparent. House prices have risen above the national average, taking rental prices with them. I knew many unemployed people growing up, and none of them 'sat on their arses', many of them were long-term volunteers for vital community projects, many of them were busy raising families (and don't try to tell an online community of mothers that constitutes sitting on your backside!). Had sustainable, long-term employment been forthcoming, no doubt they would have jumped at the opportunity. Sadly, successive governments have put short-term profit and corporate greed before the livelihoods of ordinary people and there are very few routes out of poverty for people living in the borough. Dumping these people elsewhere isn't the solution.

Asking Stoke on Trent was done for pure propaganda reasons. Unless by some sheer fluke there happens to be a Newham resident on the waiting list that has relatives in Staffordshire or some other connection, they wouldn't take up the transfer even if it was offered. So the request was redundant. If the council were asking if there was spare property in Harlow or Stevenage, somewhere a bit closer to home, that could be a good move for someone.

Isn't moving just what most working people have to do all the time when their circumstances change? My family has moved 4 times in the past 5 years (not entitled to housing benefit) and we just have to cut our cloth accordingly. No tears for all the lower middle class workers who have been socially cleansed from London. Besides, I would have thought that people should be grateful to basically have their accommodation paid for by the public purse. I never understood why it is a good idea to pay the unemployed or those on low pay to live in one of the most expensive cities on earth when a lot of people in full time jobs (who are not entitled to housing benefit) have to commute in from the suburbs.

people on minimum wage can't always afford to commute.

There is a big difference between moving to a better job opportunity and being dumped miles away from your support network and too far from your job to commute.

This will ruin lives.

"04 July 2011
Mother and two children

Government ministers may have seen analysis that proposed changes to welfare benefits could make 40,000 families homeless, it has been revealed by the Observer.

A letter sent to the prime minister by communities secretary Eric Pickles, leaked to the newspaper, warns that "? we could see an additional 20,000 homelessness acceptances as a result of the total benefit cap. This on top of the 20,000 additional acceptances already anticipated as a result of other changes to housing benefit.? "

IT SEEMS THE GOVERMENT MAY HAVE BEEN WARNED IN ADVANCE WHAT THE OUTCOME OF THEIR HB REFORMS WOULD BE.

england.shelter.org.uk/news/july_2011/welfare_changes_could_cause_homelessness

That Pickles letter expressing concerns has been established as pre-dating the eventual housing benefit changes... which were changed after his input

There are no job opportunities in Stoke. Moving some of these families will condemn them to an even longer period of unemployment.

There is a big difference between moving to a better job opportunity and being dumped miles away from your support network

If we change wording to "moving to a housing opportunity", the difference will not be such dramatic. Especially if we consider that "moving to a better job opportunity" is moving to a housing opportunity as well.

And vice versa - why moving out from not affordable rent is not called "being dumped" for working people without large families?

This 'political point scoring' is also being done by Westminster. A Tory council. Your comments?

Westminster have had a proposal submitted by something called 'Smart Housing Group' which includes sending people to Derby as an option. They haven't acted on it. I think the difference is that Newham have said 'what a great idea' knowing full well it's idiotic.

Re "There is a big difference between moving to a better job opportunity and being dumped miles away from your support network " - i don't think most working people who moved out of London because they couldn't afford it did it for better job opportunities - they mostly stayed in the same jobs, just with much, much longer and more expensive commutes. But cheaper rents or mortgages.

I read an article in the Guardian about implementation of this policy in West London (Westminster I think). The voluntary group assisting families were advising them to think very carefully before accepting a move to (eg) Luton because the probability was that the next round of reforms would mean that a couple of years later they'd have to move on to (eg) Gateshead - so it would be better to take it as a single move rather than disrupt their children's education twice.

This problem has been caused by successive govts promoting house buying and reducing council housing, allowing buy to let and paying vast sums to private land lords.
Building council houses solves unemployment and housing crisis and saves public money otherwise spent o benefits. But mortgage companies and landlords don't like it, so guess what?

Building council houses costs a lot of money in terms of one off construction costs and maintenance. Money which successive governments do not have.

"This problem has been caused by successive govts promoting house buying and reducing council housing, allowing buy to let and paying vast sums to private land lords".

And by importing 3 million + economic migrants without first thinking how this would affect jobs and housing pressures.

And by importing 3 million + economic migrants without first thinking how this would affect jobs and housing pressures.

Migration creates jobs for locals, especially high-value type of migration (in the US figures are 1 migrant:5 jobs ratio for H1-B visas), which populist Green so proudly capped (T2) and cancelled (T1).

Even with zero migration 2 inner factors create demand for 270 000 new houses annually. Rise in real income brings 150k and growth of number of households 120k. To put it in the context, in 2010 the number of new houses built was 100k.

It is not migration which creates the housing problem but local authorities not allowing to build (which would create, surprise, jobs and generate, surprise, taxes, but would outrage locals). And I am glad to see Cameron's attempt to addresses this problem with National Planning Policy Framework.

*to address

The problem with migration is not the migrants. Its them doing jobs that UK born people dont want to do because they don't pay significantly more than they are entitled to on benefits and there was little pressure to move where jobs were when the economy was growing.

The boom was always going to end. Having a system that paid people not to work in the good times was v v v stupid. Now the chickens have come home to roost.

niceguy2 taking into account unemployment and housing benefit which wouldn't be needed any more, it would be an investment, surely?

There's a lot of it going on, with very little success.

"The authority wrote to 1,179 housing associations nationwide but failed in its bid to move residents to Bedfordshire."