Homeless Dept (Enfield) Video

ABrass

https://fullfact.org/factchecks/one_in_eight_housing_benefit_claimants_unemployed-27479

It's for 2012 at which point at least 18% were in employment which compares to the 13% on JSA. The actual breakdown isn't that clear

James_B.

bouicca21 wrote: »

I take it that some people on this thread would condemn the actions of the Good Samaritan, on the grounds that the traveller should have foreseen the dangers and prepared for them.

No, but I'd condemn the actions of the grasshopper in the Grasshopper and the Ant fable, and suspect that a great many other people feel the same.

James_B.

Hoof_Hearted wrote: »

I think we need to look after those that have fallen into misfortune. However, if you are contributing nothing through working, you just cannot choose where to live. You just have to take, with gratitude, what is offered, even if it means moving to another town. This is the consequence of not being able to stand on your own two feet.

I think that many who say that people are not given housing exactly where they choose probably don't realise just how many compromises the working population have to make when it comes to choice of housing. Just about everyone will have to compromise on where they live if they want the sort of house that they are happy to come home to. It's a rare person indeed who gets both the house they want and the location, too.

The requirement that if you have your housing subsidised, or don't pay for it at all, then you should get to stay where you like is a bit strange, to say the least.

Pixie5740

Having been to some countries where there is real abject poverty I don't care if some people tax the pi$$ with their benefits. In India I saw a man with no arms and legs dumped on the pavement to wriggle around all day begging for money before being collected by a gang of men at the end of the day who took his money. This happened every day. Benefit fraud accounts for 0.7% of the total benefit expenditure which means benefit fraud costs the tax payer about £1.2 billion annually.

That £1.2 billion is chicken feed in comparison with the amount lost to tax evasion and tax avoidance. The people and companies doing that are who we should focus our attentions on. Not the small percentage of benefit claimants on the take.

Some people are caught in a welfare trap as work just doesn't pay them enough. I recently read a sensational story about an obese single mother of two claiming over £20k of benefits a year, who had never worked a day in her life, saying that it was the government's fault she is fat. She said that healthy eating is too expensive and that, "a bag of apples costs the same as a multipack of crips and I can't afford both." Her idea was for the government to pay her £1 for every lb she lost. I know this woman isn't representitve of most people who receive benefits but this story demonises those on benefits. This woman will never get a job that pays her the equivalent of £20k net. She has no qualifications, no work experience and about as much get up & go as a tub of lard. Work will never pay for her and nobody wants to see children living in poverty so for the time being we're stuck with this parasite.

gazter

ABrass wrote: »

https://fullfact.org/factchecks/one_in_eight_housing_benefit_claimants_unemployed-27479

It's for 2012 at which point at least 18% were in employment which compares to the 13% on JSA. The actual breakdown isn't that clear

And 18% is not an overwhelming majority.

gazter

Pixie5740 wrote: »

Having been to some countries where there is real abject poverty I don't care if some people tax the pi$$ with their benefits. In India I saw a man with no arms and legs dumped on the pavement to wriggle around all day begging for money before being collected by a gang of men at the end of the day who took his money. This happened every day. Benefit fraud accounts for 0.7% of the total benefit expenditure which means benefit fraud costs the tax payer about £1.2 billion annually.

That £1.2 billion is chicken feed in comparison with the amount lost to tax evasion and tax avoidance. The people and companies doing that are who we should focus our attentions on. Not the small percentage of benefit claimants on the take.

Some people are caught in a welfare trap as work just doesn't pay them enough. I recently read a sensational story about an obese single mother of two claiming over £20k of benefits a year, who had never worked a day in her life, saying that it was the government's fault she is fat. She said that healthy eating is too expensive and that, "a bag of apples costs the same as a multipack of crips and I can't afford both." Her idea was for the government to pay her £1 for every lb she lost. I know this woman isn't representitve of most people who receive benefits but this story demonises those on benefits. This woman will never get a job that pays her the equivalent of £20k net. She has no qualifications, no work experience and about as much get up & go as a tub of lard. Work will never pay for her and nobody wants to see children living in poverty so for the time being we're stuck with this parasite.

Except we are not stuck with it. Many of the reforms brought in under this government and the tail end of the last government make it clear that situations like above are becoming less and less an option. Even if it means subsidising her work heavily with tax credits, she can go and do a days grind like everyone else.

Pixie5740

gazter wrote: »

Except we are not stuck with it. Many of the reforms brought in under this government and the tail end of the last government make it clear that situations like above are becoming less and less an option. Even if it means subsidising her work heavily with tax credits, she can go and do a days grind like everyone else.

Call it what you want, JSA, HB, DLA, tax credits, child care, one way or another the tax payer will foot the bill because the NMW is not a living wage.

BigAunty

The supply/demand ratio for housing has been out of step with population and household growth for decades, perhaps approaching 30 or 40 years of neglect?.

The only way to have prevented the doubling in the housing benefit bill over the past decade and the insecurity of tenure and rates of homelessness would have been to have built enough properties to have prevented rental cost inflation.

Other less workable or less popular options include massive immigration cuts (including withdrawing from the EU), the imposition of rent controls or increase in taxation to reflect that fact that many households can now never earn enough to pay the rent and raise their children due to high costs and low salaries.

Successive governments have been too timid to launch a proper housebuilding or social housing programme or increase taxation to protect benefit claimants.

There is so little social housing and so much demand for it from homeless people that it no longer can meet its role as housing those in need. The law had to change a few years ago in England to reflect the fact that councils cannot accommodate even high priority homeless (those with disabilities and dependents) so can now discharge their statutory obligations to the homeless with a single offer of a 1 year private tenancy.

jjlandlord

Note that rent controls are useless if the demand far outstrips supply.

Sure the lucky person who does get an accommodation pays less for it.
But since the number of applicants per property is unchanged, landlords still pick the best candidate (i.e. most likely the one with the largest income) as tenant.

The end result is that those who could have paid more anyway benefit from cheaper rents while the less well-offs struggle all the same to find a place.
In addition, the supply of properties (which should increase to solve the problem) likely decreases making the imbalance even worse.

Price controls never work to fight supply shortages. Either the above happens or a black market develops.

When there is a supply shortage there are only 2 options: Boost supply or kill demand. The exact opposite of killing supply and boosting demand that price controls result in.

James_B.

Pixie5740 wrote: »

That £1.2 billion is chicken feed in comparison with the amount lost to tax evasion and tax avoidance.

People who complain about tax avoidance seem to strangely only care about other people's tax avoidance, and often think that their own is just fine.

For example, people will buy alcohol or cigarettes at duty-free shops when travelling. They'll put money into an ISA, or a pension, and they'll not pay any income tax on the first £10,000 of their earnings.

Despite millions of people doing this, and the sums adding up to a very large amount, this is all apparently "different", and it's some other people whose tax avoidance is the real issue.

For some reason, someone legitimately ensuring that they pay the right tax is wrong, whereas someone taking benefits to which they are entitled is not. I cant understand where this double-standard comes from, or why they will try to deflect valid criticism about illegal benefit fraud onto completely legal tax avoidance.