Social housing impacts

Shakethedisease

If you are not working the barriers to moving must be lower than for those that need to be within commutable distance of their work.

Single parents with kids under 7 are now on JSA and subject to the same rules and regs as everyone else. To be further reduced to age 5. ( I'm not arguing about this just pointing it out).

All of them, as far as things have been announced so far, will, not only see their LHA cut to the 30% median/percentile ( whatever it is) in April 2011.. but will also face a further 10% off their LHA rates if they are unable to secure work within 12 months from April 2012.

There are 71,100 thousand JSA Lone Parent claimants at August 2010. This is an increase of 30,325 thousand from August 2009;

At August 2010, 62,015 thousand JSA Lone parents are female and 9,085 thousand are male;

This will be UK wide of course. But this is going to be a bit of a mess. Moving when the first cuts come in, then possibly having to move again when there's another lopped 10% off. All at the bottom third of the market.

Edit just before anyone jumps in with the usual 16 year old chav mum's etc

only 13 per cent of single parents are under 25 years old, the average age being 36. Fifty-two per cent live below the breadline and 26 per cent in “non-decent” housing. Single-parent families are more likely than couple families to have a member with a disability,

ukcarper

Aren’t the government going to reduce the total amount of benefit you can get to £500 per week that will surely have a bigger impact in London that the £400 cap.

Loughton_Monkey

Frankly, I find the whole debate rather tiresome. Not least because if I wanted to "do" something with the benefits system, I wouldn't start from here.

Just imagine hypothetically discovering new territory, and populating it with a complete "cross section" of humans, and ask them to develop their own new Constitution, Laws, Taxation, and Benefits system. What would they come up with? It would certainly be a million miles away from UK.

Would you have a taxation system where everyone contributed to the Government to build, manage, and maintain schools, hospitals, roads, defense, police, other emergency services? I think so.

Would you ensure that people who were so physically disabled as to render them unable to earn any income were able to carry on a reasonably comfortable life? I think so.

Would you give money to people who did not have a job and were hence not earning any income? Probably not for long. You would give temporary help, but otherwise create an opportunity to earn money doing something for which society would be grateful. There is always new public infrastructure to develop and existing to maintain and manage.

Would you give pensions? Probably, but in a different form. They would all be 'funded' and there would be minimum compulsory contributions (employer and employee) throughout working life.

Would you 'pay' or subsidise people to have children? No. No. No. Definitely, not. This would be silly and irrational. In fact you would apply punative taxes to fourth, fifth children etc. to pay for the burden of their health and education.

Would you envisage that under such a system, 25% of the entire workforce would be, in effect, Government employees? No. No. Definitely not. That would be a ridiculously high figure wouldn't it? Completely out of the question.

Would you envisage any individual, or family, receiving money (for food, rent, expenses, entertainment etc.) any more than, say, the bottom of the third quartile of average individual or household income? Probably not.

OK, maybe a bit simplistic or 'black and white' but I really think it would be useful to map out some form of 'consensus on benefits' without in any way referring to what we do now. Only then would we have the debate about how best (and how quickly) to merge towards a more rational society.

Shakethedisease

Everyman for himself then !!!

ILW

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Everyman for himself then !!!

It did not say that at all.

Shakethedisease

Lord of the Flies then ???

Would you give, would you pay, would you envisage, would you care ?

No.. The post above intimated all of the above would be no to all.. You read it differently ?

Running_Horse

I used to live in London but moved to a cheaper area because that was what I could afford. I work long hard shifts in a dirty and dangerous environment. Why should someone not working be able to live where I can't afford to? Why should I pay higher tax so someone unemployed gets to live where I can't afford to? Why should my family go without so they get to live in central London?

sammyjammy

Shakethedisease wrote: »

Edit just before anyone jumps in with the usual 16 year old chav mum's etc

What constitutes the bread line in monetary terms?

StevieJ

Don't know much about the housing situation in London but I get the impression that the govt are attempting to finish the gentrification of the East end and Docklands, is it really so expensive to rent an ex council flat in Tower Hamlets?

drc

StevieJ wrote: »

Don't know much about the housing situation in London but I get the impression that the govt are attempting to finish the gentrification of the East end and Docklands, is it really so expensive to rent an ex council flat in Tower Hamlets?

I get the opposite impression about Tower Hamlets. That it is turning into a very nasty place, especially with the "election" of their new mayor.

Andrew Gilligan is the journalist who reported very critically on the Iraq invasion before anyone accuses him of being a racist;

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/andrewgilligan/100060304/labour-london-borough-becomes-islamic-republic/