‘We won’t reduce the rent … We’ll kick them out’: Research Reveals Landlord’s Response to Housing Benefit Reform

A report published by the DWP gives a glimpse of the horrific future hundreds of thousands of people are set to face due to housing benefit reforms.

The report is part of an ongoing piece of ‘independent’ research commissioned by the DWP to look at the impact of the first raft of welfare reforms – the vicious cuts to housing benefits.  These included the caps on the amount of benefit available to pay for housing and a reduction in local housing allowance rates from the bottom 50% to 30% of the local rental market.  Another change meant that those aged under 35 are no longer entitled to a self-contained property, but can only claim the Shared Accommodation Rate (SAR).

The research features wide ranging interviews with claimants, landlords and housing advisors discussing the changes.  As is repeatedly pointed out, as these interviews were carried out throughout 2012, then many, if not most claimants will not have yet been affected by the reforms.  This research is therefore an indicator of how people are intending to  respond to the changes.   The report is also quite long so I won’t try cover it all in one post.

Predictably the most telling comments come from landlords.  According to the report, 16% of landlords who currently let to claimants plan to stop doing so due to the cuts.  Most landlords seem well aware of what is to come and are already making plans:

“I’m giving notice on [20 tenants affected by the change to the Shared Accommodation Rate], it’s not fair, I don’t like doing it. And we’re not taking any [more] on. We have to protect ourselves and we have to protect our landlords.”

This was the response of one letting agent to the vicious slashing of housing benefits for those under 35 and is an attitude which seems to dominate the private rental sector.  Despite initial claims by the Government that landlords would lower rents in response to the changes it seems that barely any of them have been prepared to do so.  Only those renting in areas with high numbers of claimants have seriously considered this as an option – but crucially even this in many cases appears to be just a temporary measure.  Landlords may be willing to accept a temporary small reduction in rent to avoid the expense of eviction, but will turf tenants out when tenancies are due for renewal.

Local Housing Allowance (LHA) is a localised benefit, which is paid according to the local cost of rents.  This decision to peg the maximum available at the bottom 30%, rather than 50% of the market, will mean hundreds of thousands of private sector tenants forced to pay some of their rent out of meagre benefits intended to pay for other living expenses.

The average loss to claimants according to the report is £7.76 a week – although due to the caps in some areas this will be far higher.  Landlords appear to be sceptical that those on benefits will be able to afford this, with one warning: “Some of them are making it up but a lot of them are struggling because it’s not just [LHA] that’s been cut, they’re getting other money cut as well, so it’s making it harder and harder.”

Many landlords report having already reduced the number of claimants they rent to on Local Housing Allowance due to the introduction of Direct Payments by the Labour Government in 2008.  This meant that generally rent payments were sent direct  to tenants not landlords, a move which was hugely unpopular amongst those renting out property.  When Universal Credit is finally launched, the Direct Payments regime will be strengthened and also applied to the social housing sector.  The  very thing that most landlords say puts them off renting to claimants is about to be hugely extended.

As would be expected, one of the biggest impacts of the reforms has been in London where in some boroughs almost no properties are now affordable to those on benefits due to the caps.  This will not just affect those out of work – 44% of housing benefit claimants in London are working.  It will also not just impact on central London boroughs such as Westminster where rents are astronomical.  A letting agent in Barking and Dagenham reports their current strategy on renting to tenants on benefits: “We have slowly, slowly been booting them out, average between 150 and 200 properties.”

The research also reveals that a less well known, but sweeping reform to housing benefits, the introduction of the Shared Accommodation Rate for those under 35, could bring some of the most devastating consequences.   This change, which means anyone under 35 will have to find a room in a shared house to be eligible for LHA, was carried out without any assessment of whether enough properties exist to house all those who need them.

The report suggests that this is not the case, with many landlords pulling out of the multiple occupancy market due to recently introduced regulations.  Planning permission is now needed if a property is to be used for multiple tenants in a move which many landlords claim has made the sector unprofitable.  Quite simply, most landlords say the Shared Accommodation rate is too low, summed up by this quote from a landlord in Perth:  “‘Where’s the difference going to come from £52 [LHA] up to £85 a week [rent]?  There’s no way somebody on £120 a fortnight can afford to pay the difference and I can’t rent them out at £53 a week. I think they’ll possibly be moving, I can’t see any alternative.”

Almost all landlords quoted say they are planning to evict claimants under 35, with some going even further and suggesting they will now not rent to anyone from this age group: “We’re not housing under 35s now, so long term it will resolve itself because we’re not putting anyone in under 35. But we’ve got this 15, 20 people who are going to be on the street.”

This comment is backed up by a housing advice worker later in the report who says: “a lot of existing agents and landlords have told me they’ve now served notice on every tenant they have under 35. Even those tenants who might be in work at the moment, a lot of landlords have thought if they lose their job they won’t be able to pay the rent.”

Many landlords fear that tenants under 35 will face homelessness as a result of the drastic cuts: “[They’ll end up] on the streets, they’ve got nowhere to go. These people haven’t got no funds.”

Others have concerns that separated parents will no longer be able to have their children stay with one Hackney landlord saying: “There are going to be certain tenants who it’s going to have a massive impact on.  My heart bleeds for them, because the majority of them are divorced fathers who see their kids. I’ve got one lovely guy, he’s got three kids, wife lives in Hillingdon, kids come and spend the weekend with him, where’s he going to put them? Does he lose his visitation rights to his children because he hasn’t got a job or hasn’t got the home to be able to offer the children somewhere to sleep [because] there isn’t any room?”

Like many of the bodged welfare reforms, it will be the most marginalised who are worst affected by the slashing of LHA rates for under 35s.  Those likely to end up homeless will be the people who cannot go back to live with their parents, or who face other difficulties such as a mental or physical health condition which makes sharing difficult or even impossible.

Whilst claimants in some form of supported accommodation, such as homeless nightshelters or women’s refuges have been exempt from the reforms (so far), many Local Authorities used informal relationships with landlords to provide housing for those they deem ‘vulnerable’.  The report suggests this is all likely to come to an end, with one landlord reporting: “‘I’m kicking them all out … I’m serving them notices because I want, on the day the rent will have to be changed, they’ll already be out … It’s a complete change to the portfolio.  I’ve always been the person they phone up and say they’ve got somebody who’s not well or who’s just come out of drug rehabilitation, that kind. I’ve always taken them in and never had a problem but I’m not going to do it any more.”

To read the DWP’s gushing press release which accompanied this report you would never guess the bleak future it describes for low income tenants.  This is far from surprising.  Minister for Welfare Reform, Lord Fraud claimed the first piece of research in this series proved tenants were not facing excessive financial difficulties due to housing benefit reforms.  In fact the research had revealed that many tenants were having serious money problem before the cuts were even introduced.

This time the DWP is attempting to use the research to claim that there has been no Kosovo style social cleansing due to LHA reforms and people are not being exported from London in huge numbers.  But that’s because the report was carried before most claimants had been affected by the changes.  The views of claimants themselves, along with housing advice workers, (both of which I’ll cover later this week) reveals that this mass forced expulsion is simply yet to come.

It’s also important to note this research does not include the impact of the Bedroom Tax, the overall benefit cap or Council Tax benefit reform.  Nor does it consider the changes to DLA, Employment Support Allowance, the upcoming nightmare that is Universal Credit or the huge rise in the numbers of claimants having benefit’s sanctioned.  It also does not examine the consequences of the Benefit Uprating Bill which will see Local Housing Allowance rises capped at 1% annually despite rents soaring by over ten times that figure in some parts of the UK.

If this report makes grim reading (and it does) for all those concerned about the future of housing for people on low incomes, then it is only a small taste of what is to come.

The report can be read at: http://research.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd5/report_abstracts/rr_abstracts/rra_838.asp

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DWP Forced to Repay Disabled Victims of Labour’s Bedroom Tax

In a humiliating blow for both Labour and Iain Duncan Smith, the DWP has admitted that local councils will have to pay back-dated housing benefits to some families with disabled children who were hit by the private sector Bedroom Tax.

A letter from the DWP to Local Authorities published on the Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) website gives full details: http://www.dpac.uk.net/2013/03/urgent-news-for-parents-of-disabled-children-renting-in-private-sector-money-back-from-dwp/

Labour shamefully introduced the bedroom tax for private sector tenants with the emergence of the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) which replaced much of the housing benefit system.  This is the same Labour who have attempted to hijack the campaign against the despised bedroom tax for social housing tenants. In at least Birmingham and Liverpool they were told exactly where to go at yesterday’s protests.

Under the LHA rules, parents with a disabled child renting in the private sector, and who needed an extra room for an overnight carer, had money deducted from payments towards rent.

Iain Duncan Smith had fought hard to try and extend this to social housing tenants as part of the latest bedroom tax.  However along with other concessions to the vicious tax, which will now exempt some foster carers and parents of children in the armed forced, he recently announced a climb down.

This was not due to a sudden attack of conscience on Iain Duncan Smith’s part, or any compassion for disabled children.  The change is down to a case brought before the Court of Appeal by Burnip, Trengove and Gorry last year.  The judges unanimously agreed the housing benefit regulations discriminate against disabled people, because they do not allow for an additional room to be paid for where a disabled person has a carer, or where two children cannot share a room because of disability.

Iain Duncan Smith had planned to appeal the judgement to the Supreme Court, but now seems to have relented.  This is hardly surprising after his workfare regulations were recently slammed by courts and judged unalwful.  In the case of workfare, IDS is attempting to change history by introducing a bill before Parliament on Tuesday which will back-date the law and make a mockery of the Judiciary.

It seems that re-writing history twice in one week is too much for even the Secretary of State however and the DWP has contacted Local Authorities warning them they will have to repay some benefits reduced due to the private sector bedroom tax.  This comes along with a confirmation – although the exact situation remains unclear – that some families with disabled children will not be affected by next months changes.

This will only affect a fraction of a percentage of the families who will see already meagre benefits slashed when the bedroom tax begins in just over two weeks.  But for some tenants at least it is an important victory and a testament to the determination of the families who pushed the case through the courts.

It is also a timely reminder of Labour’s dirty little bedroom tax secret that they hoped we’d forget as they exploited claimant’s poverty for their own party political ends.

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Nationwide Bans The Poor From Private Renting

UPDATE: Nationwide have backed down releasing the following statement on their facebook page: 

“The Mortgage Works, a subsidiary of Nationwide Building Society, has removed the exclusion of tenants on benefits and Local Authority tenants from its Buy-to-Let terms and conditions. This follows concerns raised by its customers.

“The clarification of the terms and conditions, which took place last December, brought The Mortgage Works into line with several other Buy-to-Let lenders. This will now be removed.”

In a shocking, and possibly illegal decision, one of Britain’s biggest buy-to-let mortgage lenders is to ban landlords from accepting tenants on Local Housing Allowance.

This nasty little move will mean unemployed, disabled people, many pensioners and people on low wages will be locked out of a large sector of the private rental market.  This comes at a time when homelessness is soaring and the bedroom tax is set to force hundreds of thousands of people out of local authority housing and into the private sector.

Nationwide’s subsidiary, The Mortgage Works, are one of the largest mortgages providers for the buy-to-let vermin who have caused soaring rents and house prices.  The company say:  “Previously, lending to landlords with local authority tenants was not explicitly referenced in TMW’s lending criteria. Our re-issued terms and conditions make it explicit that local authority tenants are not acceptable.”

By local authority tenants they actually mean Housing Benefit tenants.  Many tenants on Housing Benefits are working, however should they lose their job, become disabled or fall ill, then they may now face homelessness as their landlords will have no choice but to evict.

In truth it is none of a landlord’s fucking business, or his banks, whether tenants are on benefits or not and there is no requirement to tell them.  This will sadly be of cold comfort to many tenants however, who all too often live in fear of eviction on the whims of the landlord.  Most tenants can be thrown out of their home for any reason or none with just two months notice.

Nationwide’s decision comes on the back of savage cuts to Housing Benefits which have already made much of the South East of England unaffordable for people on low incomes.  The growing homelessness epidemic in the South is soon to be matched by mass homelessness in Northern England, Scotland and Wales as the bedroom tax begins to bite.

On top of this will come the drip drip effect of George Osborne’s decision to cap annual Housing Benefit rises at 1%, despite a soaring rental market.  And in April this year the benefit cap begin to kick in which will force thousands of people out of London or onto the streets.

Already the cuts have led to local councils placing homeless families in hotels which can cost almost £3000 a week.  People’s lives are being torn apart and the Housing Benefit bill is still rising.

No DSS has long been a common sign on the windows of letting agents.  Some landlords say they will not even take working tenants on DLA, effectively banning disabled people from their housing.  This, along with punitive deposits, credit and reference checks, mean accessing private sector housing is more difficult than ever before for those on low incomes.

At present people with resident children, or those disabled or unwell enough to convince their council they are officially ‘vulnerable’, are legally able to gain some help should they become homeless.  Increasingly that means B&Bs as the number of people presenting as homeless rockets.

Yet landlords, mortgage lenders and property speculators are making millions as they exploit the soaring demand for housing.  In many parts of the UK, even a so called ‘living wage’ is not enough to pay the rent.  If Nationwide’s greedy demand is repeated by other lenders and landlords then it will mean disabled, sick, unemployed or low waged workers are effectively barred from housing in the UK.  You can tell the recession profiteers what you think of that on twitter @AskNationwide or at: http://www.facebook.com/NationwideBuildingSociety

Follow me on twitter @johnnyvoid

Lord Fraud Spins Out of Control As Homelessness Starts to Soar

A new independent study was published this week which reveals that over half a million families could face homelessness in the next year due to the Government’s brutal cuts to Local Housing Allowance (otherwise known as Housing Benefit).

Around a third of private sector landlords who currently let to LHA claimants have said they will stop, or are considering stopping, letting to claimants in the next 12 months.  This could remove the availability of around half a million homes from the low paid, pensioners, disabled or unemployed people.

The number of people claiming LHA has soared to over 5 million, up 25% since 2008, largely due to huge numbers of people only being able to find part time work.  The figure, which includes over a million pensioners, show that around 1.6 million of the total number of LHA claimants are private tenants who will be affected by the cut to the Local Housing Allowance.

The study released this week is the first part of a piece of research commissioned by the DWP to track the effects of the vicious cuts to LHA.  Astonishingly Lord Freud, the Minister for Welfare Reform has claimed:

“The research published today gives us an early insight into what is really happening and I am encouraged that it shows that the many scare stories about the effects of housing benefit reform are not materialising.“

This represents a staggering misreading of the report which includes a survey with 1,910 current LHA claimants.  The surveys were carried out in Autumn last year meaning the vast majority (1,356 claimants) have not so far been affected by the caps.  Only those who have started new claims since April 2011 will have felt any effect from the cuts.  One of the most devastating changes, which will see those aged under 35 only eligible for a room in a shared house, has still not yet been implemented.

Despite this 67% of tenants claim that there is a shortfall between the LHA they receive and their rent – and this is before the cuts have been introduced.  12% of tenants are currently in arrears, and 43% say they are currently finding it very difficult (23%) or fairly difficult (20%) to meet rent payments.

Of perhaps most concern is that 93% of current LHA claimants say they don’t know very much, or know nothing at all, about the upcoming changes to their LHA payments.  This suggests the Government has failed dismally to explain the upcoming devastation set to be caused by the drastic cuts, which will only now be beginning to affect some, though not all, of existing claimants.

Lord Fraud’s claims that all in rosy for LHA claimants either reveals startling naivety or gross  dishonesty.  This report suggests that huge numbers of people were struggling to hold onto their homes even with the system as it was before the cuts.  With homelessness agencies reporting a 16% rise in homeless households in the first three months of this year, the crisis is already escalating.  It will not be until towards the end of this year that the full extent of the LHA cuts will be felt, and even then the £500 a week benefit cap will not yet have been implemented.

Ever the willing lapdog, the Daily Telegraph has hailed the results of the study as a triumph.  Completely misreading the situation, the paper hails the news that a quarter of LHA claimants were looking for work to help meet rent payments.  This is hardly surprising news, given that 21% of those surveyed were in receipt of Job Seekers Allowance, a condition of which is that the claimant must look for work.  It is unlikely that the 25% of those on LHA who are claiming a pension are out looking for a job to avoid impending homelessness.  The study also neglects to inform us whether any of those looking for work have actually found a job, something which is increasingly unlikely in the current climate.

It is the results of the survey of landlords which perhaps reveals the grimmest view of the future.  Out of touch ministers believed that landlords would negotiate and lower rents due to LHA reforms.  The Telegraph hails the new study as evidence that this is taking place, claiming that of those who have attempted to renegotiate rents with landlords, around 1 in 4 were successful.

Many of those people will have renegotiated rents before the cuts – it remains to be seen whether landlords will agree to a further decrease in rent levels when the LHA cuts take effect.  In fact the study is quite explicit in its findings stating that: “in this early stage of the reform, the LHA measures had not, in practice, resulted in an increase in negotiation between claimants and landlords over rent levels”.

Of more concern is the result that 30% of London landlords are already not renewing tenancies due to the LHA changes, whilst only 5% may be prepared to negotiate a lower rent with an existing, or prospective tenant.  Landlords are more encouraged to lower rents if LHA payments are sent directly to them, reducing the risk of arrears building up.  This will no longer be an option when Universal Credit,the new benefit system, is finally implemented.

Lord Fraud can spin all he wants, but this report makes bleak reading.  The Telegraph claim that only 3% of people have been forced to move due to LHA cuts.  What the report actually shows is that 3% of people were having to leave their homes due to LHA rates being too low before the cuts were implemented.

Even with the system as it was huge numbers of people were struggling to pay their rent, and most are unaware of the upcoming tsunami.  The vast majority of landlords are not prepared to make any concessions, and with rents soaring as home ownership becomes an unaffordable dream for most, why would they?

On top of this comes the news that 4000 bed spaces for homeless people have been lost due to cuts.  A perfect storm is coming that may well see homelessness on an unprecedented scale in the UK .  Lord Fraud’s spin will seem as empty as his policies when sleeping bags once again line the streets of London.

Credit to Black Triangle Campaign for spotting the study which can be read at (PDF): http://research.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd5/rports2011-2012/rrep798.pdf

Benefit Claimant Fightback Begins – December 15th 2010

It’s starting small, embryonic even (as in going to get a lot fucking bigger) but the fight back against benefits cuts has begun.

A group of autonomous benefit claimants from around the country have called for a National Day of Protest Against Welfare & Housing Benefit Cuts on December 15th.  They call on all claimants, unemployed action groups, service users and service providers to organise protests in their area.

Suggestions have included sit ins at Civic Centres, Town Halls and MP constituency offices, mass sign ups to the housing register or why not call a Christmas party in your local Housing Benefit office.

London claimants will be attending the Housing Emergency Demonstration at Downing Street at 12.30pm, organised by newly formed Housing Emergency Coalition.  Bring cardboard and sleeping bags to create a cardboard city and then onto Trafalgar Square at 3pm for Christmas fun under the tree.

Rumours abound of events already being plotted in Edinburgh and possibly Brighton.  Please join the event page on facebook and help spread the word far and wide.  This is our first chance to say no to these cuts and warn we won’t pay for their crisis.

The students have shown the way, now it’s our turn.

Talking of students, they’ll be getting up close and personal with Lib Demmers at their London conference on Saturday whilst elsewhere activists will be visiting Top Shop’s flagship store at Oxford Circus.

Iain Duncan Smith – Lying or Stupid?

It’s becoming increasingly hard to tell.   Iain Duncan Smith has supposedly been working on benefit reform for ages, yet he still seems blissfully unaware of how Housing Benefit works.

He talks with great angst of poor families on 20k a year who couldn’t afford to live in city centres, whilst the poor cavort in our Mayfair mansions.  Does he not know that Housing Benefit is an in-work benefit?  Has he not realised that a family with two kids on 20k a year could claim over £200 a week in Local Housing Allowance in some areas?  Has he even bothered to actually look at the Housing Benefit rules?  Is he just really fucking thick?

Or is he just a lying piece of Tory scum?

Won’t pay, Won’t leave – The Real Cost of Those Housing Benefit Reforms

With anti-cuts protests starting to take hold across the country it seems as good a time as any to have a closer look at what the new Housing Benefit reforms are likely to mean in practice.

Firstly some home truths. The Sunday Mirror has revealed that of the one million people these cuts will affect, approximately 250,000 people are working and a further 50,000 are pensioners. The rest comprise of single parents, people with disabilities, those who are sick and the unemployed. With the recently announced job losses, it could well be safe to add another million to that figure.

So already that’s 4% of the country who may face losing their home. Toadying Lib Dem minions and their Tory overlords claim that this is scare-mongering. Proving to be both witless and chinless, Tory parasite Grant Shapps has said: “Some people will face a shortfall in their rental payments but in many cases they will be able to make up the difference themselves.”

Perhaps the thick, offensive fucker doesn’t realise that most benefit claimants and low wage earners don’t have any of their own money. We don’t have trust funds, rich parents, Tax Exempt Savings Account and Health Insurance. We don’t have fuck all. That’s kind of the point. Someone living on $65 quid a week who could be facing losing over a third of that isn’t scare mongering when they say they won’t be able to pay their rent. They are not being sensitive little flowers, or even rabid class warriors, they are simply poiting out a basic economic fact. Has anyone in this government of the rich seen the price of a fucking loaf of bread or looked at a gas bill recently? Perhaps they should ask the help.

The Tories and their dispicable lapdogs are set to pursue a series of ill thought out policies which won’t just result in misery, mass homelessness and destitution for the most vulnerable, they will also cost a fortune.

Let’s start with everyone’s favourite scapegoat, the single long term unemployed.

Those on Job Seekers Allowance for over one year face a ten percent cut in their Local Housing Allowance (LHA), the form of Housing Benefit most (but not all, more later) are claiming.

This means even those on modest rents are likely to find themselves a tenner a week short. Those in London or other inner-city areas who’ve managed to find properties below the caps could be facing a £25 a week cut from their weekly budget of £65. And it doesn’t stop there. The DWP has claimed that the decision to set Housing Benefit rates at the 30% rather than midpoint in the local market will cost the average claimant £9 a week. In many parts of the UK the figure could be much higher. So that’s some people’s incomes cut in half overnight. And there’s possibly still more to come with currently confusing talk about scrapping or curtailing Council Tax Benefit for claimants. This would allow a Tory Council, such as Westminster for example, to remove up to 10% of claimants Council Tax Benefit. Again this could cost a single JSA Claimant £25 a week. This would leave an impressive £1 a day for claimants to live on. Welcome to the third world.

Of course this is a worse case scenario. However the number of people on long term JSA is almost one million people and the number is rising fast. The number is set to rise even faster after single parents of chldren over 7 were moved over to JSA last week. The number will be greater still if Iain Duncan Smith manages to shift a million people off the sick and onto JSA – which is another story and one we will be examining in time.

So whilst a worst case scenario, it’s one that many people may find themselves facing soon. And we haven’t even mentioned the caps yet. Or the people between 25 and 34 currently living in their own flat who face having their benefits stripped and imminent homelessness. The outcome is likely to be unprecedented street homelessness, a return to the cardboard cities of the past and a rise in traveller sites and other itinerant lifestyles. And the subsequent costs of attempting to quash those lifestyles. More cops, more prisons, more expense.

‘Why should unemployed people be paid to live in £250 a week flats*, I wish I could afford a Central London flat’ read the letters in the right wing press (oblivious to the fact that Housing Benefit is available to those in work as well). Well people have to live somewhere, whether this is in a benefit subsidised flat, your doorway or the nice fields your back garden overlooks the poor will not just curl up and die just because some people want them to. Neither are they likely to find work, long term unemployment and homelessness, not being the greatest transferable skills that a job seeker may boast of as unemployment soars. The black economy will beckon, along with begging, squatting and crime. More cops, more prisons and more expense will duly follow.

* Quick reminder for the hard of thinking, when you hear claims of outrageous Housing Benefit claims, it’s the landlord that gets the fucking money, not the claimant. What the claimant usually gets is a shitty low cost flat from a flaky landlord who knows DSS tenants can’t afford to be too choosy.

But people should just move to cheaper areas cry the chinless ones. The problem is people can’t just move. A cursory scan of properties available for rent reveals two things. The first is the uniquitous phrase No DSS, present on almost Letting Agent windows, the second is the soaring demands for deposits, agency fees and rent in advance. This means to secure a new property many benefit claimants could be looking at finding two months rent (worst case scenario, two grand for a single person, renting at the levels of the caps in Westminster). That’s before basic removal expenses.

So they can’t just move. But what about the extra emergency funding bleat the Toffs. Yes folks, a whopping 10 million has just been set aside to address this problem in London. £10 million that will require a mountain of beaurocracy to access and if the London Councils figures are to be believed (and we believe them to be a massive under-estimation when all the new changes are taken into account), this works out at £40 per person affected by the cuts. Not that they will see it, with much of it already being swept up by London homeless charities who have long cared far more about following Westminster Council dictats and preserving their own salaries.

People can of course take direct action themsleves in the form of refusing to pay the shortfall in their rent, spend up to a year waiting for eviction hearings and bailiffs and then declare themselves as homeless with the local authority. This option, whilst only available to those with priority need i.e. kids, pensioners and those who are sick or diabled, will mean that the local authority has a statutory duty to house them in temporary accommodation immediately. This is why London Councils are currently block booking B&Bs on the south coast. But here’s some pure comedy. People housed in temporary accommodation by the Council are not paid Local Housing Allowance (LHA) but good old fashioned Housing Benefit, which is not subject to the caps.

This could mean, for example, that a family of four who’ve spent a year facing eviction from a grand a week Islington house, meaning personal trauma for the tenant and a big fuck off bill for the landlord (every cloud), could, as the system stands presently, simply be rehoused in the same house, at a cost of a grand a week. Or more depending on how charitable the landlord is feeling by this time. Most three year olds can join the dots better than this Government. So can Westminster Council who have started to lobby for amendments to the Housing Act in yet another attempt to punt homeless people in Westminster into their less well of neighbouring areas.

What does all this mean. For the hard nosed Tory scum out there, this means more bearocracy, bigger government, more forms, more checks, more appeals, more council snoopers, plus a whopping bill for landlords. Will these costs outweight the savings? Who knows, nobody’s even done the sums. What it does reveal is a government more concerned with smashing the welfare state than any cost cutting excercises.

And as to the social cost. Well apart from low income families being forced into poverty and homelessness, this will mean many of the working poor forced to move away from their work. With public transport fares set to rise may of them will no doubt realise it’s not worth the effort and look for jobs locally. The exporting of thousands of people, both the low waged and the unemployed, from areas of high employment into areas of low employment rates will bring devastating costs to some of the most deprived areas in the UK. And we haven’t even mentioned the public sector job losses.

But there is another factor still which will affect far more people than just benefit claimants. Many people seem to be under the apprhension that the Caps apply equally everywhere. This isn’t the case, the Caps only apply in areas where rents in the 30th percentile of the market are above the suggested caps. This means that you won’t be able to claim £250 a week for a one bed flat in downtown Bradford. Not yet anyway.

Whilst areas like Central London and other city centres are experiencing a bouyant rental market, the outlook in outlying areas is not so bright. With the recent recession and more lob losses to come, more landlords are likely to come round to the idea of renting to DSS Tenants. And, what luck, they can expect to see a flock of them after the poor are socially cleansed from the inner cities.

So as demand soars rents everywhere are likely to climb towards the levels of the caps. It ain’t rocket science after all. If you tell a group of children they can have three sweets each they will each take three sweets and landlords are likely to behave much the same way. How much this will push up rents in outlying areas (where most people live) is anybodys guess. No-one’s done the sums, again. What it is likely to mean is higher rents for benefit claimants and non claimants alike. And a much bigger Housing Benefit bill for everyone.

Our initial instinct back after the budget appears to be holding true. This shower of chinless wonders, cossetted as they have been by rich parents and public school, are simply not very clever. The Bullingdon boys and their fags may have a weird ideology based somewhere between Thatcher, the Daily Mail and Camberwick Green, but they aren’t even smart enough to pursue that properly. Not the sharpest tools in the box you might say (although they are tools). Imagine Tim ‘nice but dim’, except not very nice either. Not someone you’d want running a public bog, let alone a country.

Benefit Claimants Fight Back!

Those Housing Benefit Reforms – it’s not just about unemployed Londoners

The new Housing Benefit reforms announced by Gideon George yesterday will not just affect Londoners or the unemployed. Whilst the new Local Housing Allowance (LHA) caps will make it impossible for people living on benefit to rent a private sector property in Central London, the rest of the country hasn’t been left out and can expect their own share of mass homelessness.

In the budget small print it has been announced that LHA rates will now be set at the 30th percentile of local rents as opposed to the median (50%)*. We still don’t know whether this will apply to new claimants only or whether people already claiming Housing Benefit will be affected.

Even if this only applies to new claimants then the impact could be devastating. The newly unemployed, who don’t think that much about market percentiles when renting a flat, could be forced out of their homes. And there’s going to be lots of newly unemployed.

Of course despite the howls of protests about scroungers from the ignorant tory right this won’t just affect the workless. About half of the 5 million or so people claiming Housing Benefit are either in work or pensioners.

It doesn’t end there. Also buried is the fine print of the budget document is the news that those who have been claiming Job Seeker’s Allowance (JSA) for 12 months will see their Housing Benefit cut by 10% from April 2013. For a claimant in a modestly priced one bed flat, costing say £150, that will be an extra 15 quid a week. With JSA levels set at just over £65 this means a benefit cut, in real terms, of almost 25%!

So let’s say some poor bastard mistakenly took on a flat costing around the median of a local area and then happened to lose their job and were unable to find another after 12 months. Combined with the reduction of the LHA percentile rate and the 10% JSA cut this could leave people living on as little as five or six pounds a day. Take out essential and unavoidable costs such as heat, light and water and this figure could be as low as 2 or 3 pounds a day. Which isn’t enough to be able to eat .

With the news that single parents and huge numbers of people on Incapacity Benefit are set to be transferred to JSA then this could leave millions choosing between starvation or homelessness.

What we’re seeing here is the beginning of the real agenda, the end of the welfare state. That’s what happens when you let posh cunts run the country.

*This does not mean that LHA will be cut to 30% of current claims. It’s bad, but not quite that bad yet. It means that instead of setting LHA rates at 50% of the current property market rents they will be set at 30%. Imagine there are three flats to rent in a road. One costs £200, one £175 and one £150. Currently the LHA rate for the road would be £175. Under the new proposals that would be reduced to £165, meaning the person in the £175 flat will be forced to move or pay a tenner a week out of their benefit.

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