Taxpayer funds familys £1,600 per week rent - The Times

drc

From The Times;

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6936223.ece

Taxpayer funds family's £1,600-a-week rent




Helen Davies and Chris Hastings

A FAMILY of former asylum seekers is living in a £1.8m central London home at a cost to the taxpayer of £1,600 a week, despite a pledge by ministers to crack down on housing benefit payments.
Somali-born Nasra Warsame, seven of her children and her mother moved into the six-bedroom property last month after Westminster council agreed to pay the rent.
Her husband and an eighth child are living in a separate “overspill” property also paid for by housing benefit. Warsame’s five-storey home boasts three sitting rooms and four bathrooms. It is within walking distance of the West End.
This weekend critics said the £1,600 payment — £83,000 a year — was “excessive” and accused the government of failing to get to grips with Britain’s annual £17 billion housing benefit bill.

Last year James Purnell, then work and pensions secretary, promised to make housing benefit “fair to taxpayers” as well as to people on low incomes.
Today’s revelations, however, appear to contradict that claim. The Warsame family home is part of a smart 1960s development just yards from Edgware Road Underground station.
It is understood that the house was previously rented out at £800 per week — considered by estate agents in the area as the going rate for similar properties. It is unclear why the taxpayer is having to pay twice that rate.
“The new house we moved into in October is a nice house and it is in a nice area,” said Warsame, 40. “It is quiet and it is convenient and we do not want to leave.” Her mother and her children, who are aged between two and 16, enjoy the use of a spacious living room with two leather sofas and a flatscreen television, as well as two other lounges. Some of the bedrooms have balconies overlooking a courtyard.
The family was placed in the property because its previous five-bedroom home in Maida Vale, northwest London, was considered too small by council officials. At that address, the weekly rent — which was also covered by housing benefit — was £800.
“It is better than the house we were living in in Maida Vale which was quite small,” said Warsame. “We were getting complaints from neighbours that the children were being too noisy.”
Warsame’s unemployed husband, Bashir Aden, 50, is living with the couple’s eighth child at a two-bedroom council flat in the neighbouring London borough of Camden. He said the family has had to opt for two separate homes because it could not find a big enough property to house everyone under the same roof.
The couple fled unrest in Somalia in 1991 and claimed asylum on their arrival in Britain. They have since been granted citizenship and all of their children were born here.
Warsame, however, could now be evicted from her latest home. The property is in the hands of receivers after its original owner failed to keep up with mortgage payments. The receivers claim it has been rented out illegally.
Last year it emerged that Toorpakai Saindi, an Afghan mother of seven, was receiving £12,000 a month to live in a seven-bedroom property, complete with 100ft garden, in west London.
At the time, Purnell described the payments by Ealing council as “unacceptable” and ordered a review of housing benefit.
A cap has since been placed on payments for any property with five bedrooms or more, but this limit varies from one council to another. Meanwhile, a public consultation on reform has failed to materialise.
Philippa Roe, the cabinet member for housing at Tory-led Westminster council, said: “The amount of housing benefit payable for tenants is determined by government policy. We would like to see the entire system changed to enable local councils to have more control.”
A spokesman for the work and pensions department said: “We will launch our consultation on further reforms to housing benefit shortly. We want the system to be fair both to families in need and to the taxpayer.”
“It is right that we have a benefits system that helps people to keep a roof over their heads, but this claim clearly goes beyond that,” said Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance pressure group.
“The government has talked the talk about reining in and clamping down, but there is very little evidence that they are implementing that in practice.”

undetterred

Fair play,the guy looks happy and relaxed,sour grapes.........

carolt

drc wrote: »

From The Times;

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6936223.ece

I don't get why a family of 8 children, and 3 adults, need more than a 6 bedroom house? Why an extra 'overspill' house?

How many different genders can their children be?

Male, female and alien?

1 couple = 1 bedroom. Mother = 1 bedroom. 8 children, all sharing = 4 beds.

Should be enough room for everyone. Or shock horror! They could actually house one of the children in one of the 3 lounges, if they really can't bear sharing... :rolleyes:

Clearly, one rule for those working, and a different one for those paid for out of us workers' taxes. :rolleyes:

Can't help wondering if they'd have 8 children if they had actually had to face paying for housing for them themselves...

PS I'd like to live in Maida Vale and W1 too, but I can't afford it.

Hmm.

ThrowingStonesAtYou

undetterred wrote: »

Fair play,the guy looks happy and relaxed,sour grapes.........

Reading the article, I'm not suprised he's happy and relaxed.

carolt

Not sure I agree - it wouldn't make it one cent better if they were white and born here. This isn't a race issue to me. It's a benefits/wrong-headed incentives and financial mismanagement problem, IMO.

thriftybabe

This kind of story makes my blood boil! What other country in the world would support this? It is mental! I would be putting them to a postcode where rents do not cost that amount per week!!!

leveller2911

carolt wrote: »

Not sure I agree - it wouldn't make it one cent better if they were white and born here. This isn't a race issue to me. It's a benefits/wrong-headed incentives and financial mismanagement problem, IMO.

Its not a race issue to me either, I think anyone born here (no matter what colour) should get priority over people coming here from abroad, especially if they have wroked and paid into the system......

This isnt a race issue at all so please dont imply my post was .....I'd still have the same view Carol if Australia had a civil war and the immigrants came from there........

drc

So that's £83,200 on rent alone per year for this one family. I wonder how many "too expensive" alzheimer and cancer drugs that could buy and how many lives could be saved. What a waste.

BACKFRMTHEEDGE

"The richest 1% in the UK hold some 70% of the country’s wealth"

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/edmundconway/100002243/inequality-in-britain-is-of-developing-world-level/

Now that's something to really complain about. You're mugs, you're so busy chucking stones at each other you don't see whats going on under your nose. The Tory press are playing you guys for mugs.

Wake up and smell the coffee.

Graham_Devon

BACKFRMTHEEDGE wrote: »

"The richest 1% in the UK hold some 70% of the country’s wealth"

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/edmundconway/100002243/inequality-in-britain-is-of-developing-world-level/

Now that's something to really complain about. You're mugs, you're so busy chucking stones at each other you don't see whats going on under your nose. The Tory press are playing you guys for mugs.

Wake up and smell the coffee.

Theres lots to complain about. Just not sure how this relates to this particulare complaint in any way, shape or form.

BitterAndTwisted

Westminster should ship this family out Port Talbot or somewhere. I'm sure they'd be happy to pay the housing costs to the local authority there. Win/Win

Here's a question I don't know the answer to: the Somali/Horn of Africa community have the lowest numbers in paid work in the country. I'd be interested to know why this might be.

And here's another question: I've got some lovely neighbours living in a LA two-bedroomed flat with their three children. Both parents work full-time and they cannot get themselves moved to a larger property. The children of the family in the article were all born in this country so how or why did they manage to move up from say a one-bed to a two-bed etc. etc. Enquiring minds (well, this one anyway) would like to know.

I accept that life's not fair but the situation reported in the newspaper seems like a criminal waste of tax-payers' money any way I try to look at it.