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Some pensioners will be affected by the 'bedroom tax'
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princessdon wrote: »Many families are in very cramped and poor conditions in private rental. They'd give their eye teeth for secure tenancy, garden and 14% "tax".
Spare a thought to families on the waiting list for years when looking at this subject.
If solving under-occupancy was the problem, everyone would be subject to downsizing rules, not just those on housing benefit. There is no point in pretending that the bedroom tax bears any relation to solving under-occupancy in social housing, which in fact has the lowest under-occupancy rates of any type of housing.0 -
it just occured to me whilst reading another thread .... if a single pensioner is renting in the orivate sector ... what is their LHA entitlement??
as if it is only the 1 bedroomed rate, then there is a discrepency, as social housing tenants can occupy any size of property as long as they are already living in ur.
its not that i want all pensioners to pay, but if the main argument bought up time and time again is parity with the private sector, then surely this should be addressed too?0 -
Personally, I think that more flexibility is exactly what the social housing sector could do with, particularly if it means breaking up many of of the estates where generations of benefit dependent families live.
Which estates have generations of benefit dependant families living in them?0 -
I assume that a single pensioner is entitled to the one-bedroom rate.it just occured to me whilst reading another thread .... if a single pensioner is renting in the orivate sector ... what is their LHA entitlement??
its not that i want all pensioners to pay, but if the main argument bought up time and time again is parity with the private sector, then surely this should be addressed too?
To achieve parity with the private sector, social housing tenants would also be entitled to the same LHA rates as private tenants.0 -
(source: The English Housing Survey)
Not forgetting that a large proportion of the 5% of under-occupiers in the social housing sector will remain unaffected by the bedroom tax, either because they do not claim housing benefit, or are OAPs. The policy does very little to address the almost non-existent 'problem' of under-occupancy in the social housing sector.
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(source: The English Housing Survey)
Not forgetting that a large proportion of the 5% of under-occupiers in the social housing sector will remain unaffected by the bedroom tax, either because they do not claim housing benefit, or are OAPs. The policy does very little to address the almost non-existent 'problem' of under-occupancy in the social housing sector.
Then there will be very few people affected by the "bedroom tax" and everybody's getting het up about nothing!0 -
Then there will be very few people affected by the "bedroom tax" and everybody's getting het up about nothing!
While social housing tenants are one of the smallest groups of occupiers, as social housing is often allocated on need, they have one of the highest rates of benefit dependency. This, added to the fact that so many of them have unoccupied rooms, means that it affects a lot of them.
It's also amplified by the fact that they've not been impacted by the dozens of HB changes that have affected HB claimants in the private sector, they've been inured to change for decades.
So they would have naturally got complacent about their 'entitlement' which has meant that since the inception of social housing, they've been allowed to live in the same property for their natural life even if it is too big for their needs, even when the waiting lists are groaning with over-crowded households seeking a larger place.
67 per cent of HB recipients are tenants of Social Sector landlords. The proposal will affect an estimated 660,000 working-age social tenants – 31% of existing working-age housing benefit claimants in the social sector.
Basically, out of the blue, a third of social housing tenants are now having their full HB cut and this shortfall may represent quite a chunk of their disposable income. Some benefit recipients get the same or more as working households and can cover the drop but others are subsistence sums that are far less than those in employment.
The social housing sector is so small, compared with the private sector, that many can't find places to downsize into.
It affects 660,000 people so even though the social housing sector is tiny, it's still a big deal.0 -
Which estates have generations of benefit dependant families living in them?
I used to work for DWP, and there were huge estates in the affluent city I worked in where 4-5 names would dominate the claims, per estate. It was easy to see when the kids became old enough to claim in their own right, have kids and move a street away.0 -
I have to say it really annoys me with the amount of people...saying its to get the lazy not working off the bums and out to work,and people with spare rooms,what about the innocents in this ? I work part time and have 2 children 1 girl 5 and 1 boy 3 years old. I have always worked, never signed on in my 33 years,and I pay the same bills everyone else does who owns there home..so I made a few bad decisions early on my life,which has prevented me getting on the property ladder. I moved into a small 2 bedroom house when I had my little girl, and then obviously 2 years later my little boy,on enquiring to my local council they deemed the single room in the house to small for my children and so we have the house we are in now. Which is a 3 bed,but because my children are under 10 I will fall foul of the reform. It's unfair that the council deemed the last room to small but now want to charge me £60 pm for what we have now,and just to top it all off my sons bedroom has a floor space of 5.5 square foot, we had to adapt it to fit a bed ....it's ludicrous that I should pay £60 pm for this. I just wish people would stop piping up and tarring everyone in social housing with the same brush,yes there may be people who deserve to pay up, but there are a whole lot more who are going to suffer :-( me includedDon't expect everyone to understand your journey, especially If they've never had to walk your path!!0
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