[DanaC]

Originally Posted by orthodoc

@Dana - Thank you for explaining further. As always, you shed light on the subtleties of the situation.

Not being allowed to rent out a spare room, and yet facing a tax (or eviction) for having a spare room, makes no sense. Especially where a child is sharing time between two households. That is frankly insane, and I agree with you on that. In PA, people on disability are permitted to share housing. Marriage is a disadvantage because the non-disabled spouse is expected to support the disabled spouse, and benefits are cut. But sharing of housing is virtually required unless there's significant SSDI (disability benefits related to years of previous work). If someone becomes (or has always been) disabled at a young age, without much work experience, SSI benefits are utterly inadequate to manage independently.

From what you've said, I take it that the government is trying to evict those with spare rooms and move overcrowded families into those houses? Is there any attempt to move the smaller families into the previously overcrowded housing? (I know this only addresses the issue of homelessness and not the issues of uprooting longtime, possibly disabled tenants, or having children change schools, etc. - all of which are important issues.)

I do understand your point regarding entire areas becoming inaccessible to people with lower incomes. I'm not advocating that extreme; my concern has been the difficulty faced by long-term lower-income residents of a city like Toronto who find themselves increasingly unable to meet the property and school tax burden (if owners) or rent increases. These families are forced to move to smaller cities or towns. It creates resentment and, I think can fairly be said, an injustice, that, after losing their homes of 30+ years, they are required to support others who are new to the city in living where they had their lives, their neighborhoods, their memories.

I know change is inevitable. It's also painful to those who don't have a choice, and in this I completely sympathize, no matter who it is.

I also appreciate your comment that many cuts and changes are coming to bear all at once. That makes for a very different picture. I hate, especially, to think that benefits for caregivers are being cut. That has to be the most short-sighted, inhumane policy possible.

The having to move out because of unaffordability is a problem. One of the really unfair things about this is it also affects working people. The vast majority of people claiming housing benefit are actually the working poor, not the unemployed. And 70% of households affected by the bedroom tax are households with disabled members - for example: in cases where a husband and wife live together and one of them has severe disabilities, or dementia and the unaffacted partner needs to sometimes sleep in the spare room in order to get some sleep.


The hope, according to the government, is that those in under occupied homes will move to somewhere smaller, freeing up the larger homes for those currently in overcrowded homes. The problem is that the number of smaller homes available in the social sector (council houses, association houses, assisted housing) is wholly inadequate, meaning they will have to go into the private sector: where the rents are higher, but where a higher percentage of their rent will be covered because they won't come under the extra bedroom rule.

In theory, they'll move into the private sector, and those currently underhouses in the private sector will move into their house.

In reality, the private sector is becoming less and less accessible to social renters. Most of the houses that go up for rent now say: No Dogs, No DSS, meaning they won't take on social tenants.

Very few of the smalltime landlords will take on benefits claimants. That leaves the big players. The slum landlords.

What has exacerbated this whole thing are a number of other changes. Starting with the wholescale sell-off of housing stock during the 80s and 90s. Tenants were given the right to buy at a reduced rate. The councils who previously owned those houses were not allowed to use those funds to build new houses. They were then pressured to handover their remaining stock to arms length associations. In theory this is just as much of a safety net as the previous system. They're not for profit after all. But they need to make enough to pay their chief exec half a million or more per year, and give silver hellos and golden handshakes to senior staff. And they can't be voted out if they fuck it up. They don't just build social housing now, they also build for sale.

So: in a country that already had a housing shortage, though a small one, with people waiting up to four or five years for council houses, they sold off the stock. Now the average waiting time runs into decades unless you meet the criteria for extreme vulnerability. People 'bid' for houses as they become available. But those with specific housing needs that grant them silver or gold status will always get them. The poor bastards with the 'bronze' status can bid fify times a week and they'll never get it.

The housing boom built lots of houses that nobody can afford. In my borough there are about 6000 people waiting for housing. There are also several thousand empty properties. Most of them are one and two bedroom apartments. But they're standing empty.

Another, more recent change which has exacerbated the situation is the ending of direct payments for housing benefits. Used to be, you could choose to have the rent paid directly to the landlord. That provided smaller landlords (people who've bought one or two houses to let alongside their dayjob) with the reassurance they needed to take on a social tenant.

Now, you are only given that facility if you've gone several months in arrears and are at risk of eviction.

No Dogs, No DSS.

So, if the private landlords won't take them. And their tenancy agreements won't let them take on a boarder to fill their spare room. Where the fuck are they supposed to go?

They're not being evicted by the government. They're having their benefit reduced by £14 per week for that extra room. That is one fuck of a big chunk to take off someone whose income after rent is around £60 per week (for someone unemployed or on disability)

Most of those tenants already pay a small contribution to their rent out of their other benefits. Now they're going to have to pay an extra £14. Those same people are about to be hit with council tax for the first time. Instead of being wholly exempt, they will now have to pay a small contribution (probably about £10 per week.

£24 per week out of their £60 a week.


Later this year, the next blow: the universal credit. Instead of a raft of different benefits, one single benefit covering it all. With an absoluter limit of £500 per week per household, regardless of family size or location: hell of a difference between trying to live for £500 a week in the north, and in the south. hell of a difference between £500 per week for a couple with one child, and a couple with three children.

Then, as a final kick in the guts: benefits are to be capped at 1% for the next three years. meaning a real terms cut of several percent over that period.

And iof you're in work? Well, the working tax credits are included in that. If two parents work, they will be rewarded with some tax benefits. But only if they work full time. Tax credits for those working part time, or where one parents isn't working, are reducing and some ending.

Travel allowances for disabled people in residential care has been scrapped. Along with a raft of other smaller benefits.

Theytell us that it will be picked up by the raise in income tax barrier. So a larger proportion of low wages will be kept and not swallowed up by taxes. But it is more than offset by the loss of working tax credits. At the same time, the top rate of income tax has been cut.

The cost of the country's recovery is being borne by the poorest and least able to cope. Anbd it isn't even going to save us money. It's going to cost heavily.