Do you support social housing?

gazter

Matt1977 wrote: »

Yes, I support social housing.

I grew up in a council house. Well, my parents bought theirs in 1982/3 I must confess. Athough they benefited from RTB (Right To Buy), I dislike that new council homes were never built in place of the ones sold off. I believe that RTB should be albolished.

It is great that councils are allowed to build homes for rent once again (without financial penalties from Central Government). Plenty of choice of homes in the private rental and private sales market but limited supply of affordable housing. My local authority needs to build around 4,000 of these dwellings to meet the demand on the register. I am currently on the housing register - I would gladly waive my 'Right To Buy' if offered a tenancy.

Furthermore, it would be great to force more competition between the private rented sector and the affordable rented sector. Private rental is just too damn expensive at the moment. It seems barmy that the rent on a 4 or 5 bedroomed council house is less than a private rented 1 bedroomed flat (in my area it is anyway). :huh:

With the introduction of the spare room subsidy (aka: bedroom tax), smaller households and lofty heating bills, councils ought to focus their efforts on increasing the provision of 1 bedroomed flats, bungalows and houses. With decent storage space too.:)

Outside the hotspots the 'need' is not the same as demand. Does your local authority really need 4,000 new social houses? Really? They are often just myths based on dodgy reporting. The number of people on a waiting list does not represent the demand one for one. Can you seriously imagine in your area the size of an estate needed for an extra 4,000?

Loughton_Monkey

Kennyboy66 wrote: »

Who could disagree with this.

It does however seem to peddle the fiction that there are loads of single parents getting £21k tax free plus free housing.

The truth is more like a single parent with one child would get just over £155 per week plus housing benefit (lets assume this covers their rent).

Council Tax benefit was abolished this year, and it depends on what council tax reduction scheme is run locally.

No, the £21K would apply to 2 children in a medium priced housing area [last time I looked]. It includes the rent. The same rent the guy earning £22K would have to pay.

It's nice to see that benefits are slowly reducing by attrition, but there remain, I believe, a marked imbalance between those on the higher end of benefits compared to an equivalent working working family at the lower end of the wage scale - just above what would qualify for benefits. After tax.

springdreams

gazter wrote: »

Outside the hotspots the 'need' is not the same as demand. Does your local authority really need 4,000 new social houses? Really? They are often just myths based on dodgy reporting. The number of people on a waiting list does not represent the demand one for one. Can you seriously imagine in your area the size of an estate needed for an extra 4,000?

I would imagine quite a bit of that demand is not from people who are in short term need of social housing, but is rather created by people who are renting privately, but would prefer the highly tax payer subsidised rental rates of social housing :cool:

Kennyboy66

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

No, the £21K would apply to 2 children in a medium priced housing area [last time I looked]. It includes the rent. The same rent the guy earning £22K would have to pay.

It's nice to see that benefits are slowly reducing by attrition, but there remain, I believe, a marked imbalance between those on the higher end of benefits compared to an equivalent working working family at the lower end of the wage scale - just above what would qualify for benefits. After tax.

Why on earth would you think the cut off for benefits is £22k ?

I presume you are ignoring the fact that in your comparison that the neighbouring family with 2 children (between 1 and 9) earning £22k (lets assume just one partner works) would get an additional £9800 in benefits (housing benefit, child tax credit and child benefit).

Yes they would pay tax and NI (£4160 per year), but they would be about £115 a week better off.

I'm not sure why people persist in the fiction that all people on benefits are better off not working.

Loughton_Monkey

Kennyboy66 wrote: »

Why on earth would you think the cut off for benefits is £22k ?

I presume you are ignoring the fact that in your comparison that the neighbouring family with 2 children (between 1 and 9) earning £22k (lets assume just one partner works) would get an additional £9800 in benefits (housing benefit, child tax credit and child benefit).

Yes they would pay tax and NI (£4160 per year), but they would be about £115 a week better off.

I'm not sure why people persist in the fiction that all people on benefits are better off not working.

I am not saying that "all people" on benefits are better off not working.

Look at my original post on the subject (#115) in which I was making a point. The figures are clearly ones I have thrown in, just as illustration, which I don't know exactly due to the complexities of the system. I have looked up enough examples in the past to get an idea.

My main point was about where my sympathies lie. And that is with the family (on whatever low income it is, to qualify for no means tested benefits). Maybe in your wisdom you can tell us what that is. But whatever it is, take off the tax and NI and see what they bring home.

Now look at someone paying the same rent, but not working, and calculate the tax free take home benefits. Yes, it might be slightly lower. But I repeat that my sympathies lie with the working family and the fact that his tax is supporting far more benefits than should be the case.

Kennyboy66

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

My main point was about where my sympathies lie. And that is with the family (on whatever low income it is, to qualify for no means tested benefits). Maybe in your wisdom you can tell us what that is. But whatever it is, take off the tax and NI and see what they bring home.

Now look at someone paying the same rent, but not working, and calculate the tax free take home benefits. Yes, it might be slightly lower. But I repeat that my sympathies lie with the working family and the fact that his tax is supporting far more benefits than should be the case.

Whose sympathies wouldn't lie with the working family, however you brought the figures up, and I just thought they were worth correcting, as they seemed particularly misleading.

As an example a family with one earning £32k would still get child tax credits (just over £2000 per year) and child benefit (£1700 per year).

There are multitude issues with the benefit system but in essence the biggest ones and the largest cost ones are;

1) People who seemingly choose to exist on benefits rather than work.

2) People who have made no provision for retirement (like roughly half of current pensioners) other than relying on state benefit.

We then have the issue of low pay and high housing costs which means the benefits system extends to great swathes of the population.

Instead the debate is forever an obsession about young single parents milking the benefit system. It sort of ignores the fact that the average (mean) age for mothers giving birth is now 30 years old. For first births it is 28 years.

BigAunty

Kennyboy66 wrote: »

I'm not sure why people persist in the fiction that all people on benefits are better off not working.

I am a regular poster on the benefits board and have a good general knowledge of the benefits system.

It is indeed the case that some social groups on benefits are either actually better off working less hours or feel that the modest increase in income isn't worth it because of the steep withdrawal of benefits and their exposure to extra work related travel or childcare related costs or entry into taxation.

The forum there is choc-a-bloc full of posts from people trying to see how little they can work to maximise their benefits, fears of moving in with partners or accepting inheritances due to the impact on their benefits.

The DWP whitepaper for the Universal Credit system has actual valid examples of how tax credits can trap people into keeping their hours low because they don't get to retain much of the additional income.

DWP figures (albeit published before changes to tax credits so might be different now) actually showed that if you take two families with 3 kids with identical housing costs, one with a part time income of 9k and one with around 35k, the latter household is only 'better' off by a very modest degree indeed. Although I cant remember the exact figure, it was very slight. So one household has one parent working part time on National Minimum Wage, one household has two parents working full time on decent wages but they don't have anything much to show for it.

BigAunty

Matt1977 wrote: »

Yes, I support social housing.

I grew up in a council house. Well, my parents bought theirs in 1982/3 I must confess. Athough they benefited from RTB (Right To Buy), I dislike that new council homes were never built in place of the ones sold off. I believe that RTB should be albolished.

Yes, RTB was the main reason that started the rot in social housing.

So too was the move from waiting list principle to allocation by need which causes mass resentment in society and has helped to virtually criminalise social housing tenants. Poor behaviour and weakness is perceived to be rewarded with a lifetime gift of low rent and security of tenure.

Also, the spare room subsidy is a bad way to deal with the endemic under occupancy in the sector - housing law compels social housing landlords to offer larger properties as the tenant's household size increases but no reciprocal obligation for the tenant to downsize when their household size shrinks.

I know that it is often said that many disabled people need the second room to sleep apart or store their equipment but unless its an iron lung or they don't have a living room, I dont buy that argument.

CLAPTON

Matt1977 wrote: »

Yes, I support social housing.

I grew up in a council house. Well, my parents bought theirs in 1982/3 I must confess. Athough they benefited from RTB (Right To Buy), I dislike that new council homes were never built in place of the ones sold off. I believe that RTB should be albolished.

It is great that councils are allowed to build homes for rent once again (without financial penalties from Central Government). Plenty of choice of homes in the private rental and private sales market but limited supply of affordable housing. My local authority needs to build around 4,000 of these dwellings to meet the demand on the register. I am currently on the housing register - I would gladly waive my 'Right To Buy' if offered a tenancy.

Furthermore, it would be great to force more competition between the private rented sector and the affordable rented sector. Private rental is just too damn expensive at the moment. It seems barmy that the rent on a 4 or 5 bedroomed council house is less than a private rented 1 bedroomed flat (in my area it is anyway). :huh:

With the introduction of the spare room subsidy (aka: bedroom tax), smaller households and lofty heating bills, councils ought to focus their efforts on increasing the provision of 1 bedroomed flats, bungalows and houses. With decent storage space too.:)

you say you are on the council waiting for housing;
what are your circumstances; what sort of property do you currently live in?

dktreesea

BigAunty wrote: »

The DWP whitepaper for the Universal Credit system has actual valid examples of how tax credits can trap people into keeping their hours low because they don't get to retain much of the additional income.

DWP figures (albeit published before changes to tax credits so might be different now) actually showed that if you take two families with 3 kids with identical housing costs, one with a part time income of 9k and one with around 35k, the latter household is only 'better' off by a very modest degree indeed. Although I cant remember the exact figure, it was very slight. So one household has one parent working part time on National Minimum Wage, one household has two parents working full time on decent wages but they don't have anything much to show for it.

Yes, the working family may only be better off my a modest degree at the moment. Once all three children are over the age of 18/out of FT education, and have left home, it's likely to be quite a different story. Say by then both sets of parents are in their early 40s. They both have a 3 bedroom house. For the parents who both work full time, their income is now completely their own. Say they are both on £17,500 a year, paying £1,500 a year tax (20% over and above the personal allowance of £10k, approx) each, so £32k a year all for themselves.

That's not quite the same as having a £9k a year PT income, both getting whatever the top up is for WTC, say £70 a week, but only getting the LHA for 1 bedroom, not 3 bedrooms, leaving them with a shortfall, of, say, £80 a week to cover their rent. Maybe they can't increase their hours. Maybe they don't have many skills that employers want. And it's 25 to 30 years of that low income potentially, i.e. before they qualify for the pension.