Have your say in House of Commons homelessness inquiry

ska_lover

From personal experience, There seems to be very little help available from the council, and even less if you have no children and are male

Social housing where I live has a waiting list of tens of thousands and only last week the local council has said that there are many people on there that will be waiting decades or not get housed ever, at all. So 'putting your name down' is quite literally a waste of time - so where do we go from there? Unless you can afford a deposit and get a mortgage, your only choice is to private rent.......with very expensive rents, compared to what local authorities are charging. So then getting yourself in to the debt trap once again as you end up paying such high percentage of your wages on rent alone. It is a trap that many are forced into

Some points that I have noticed are
1- Improve assistance for single men, there is literally nothing in this town for a single guy. Any hostel placement or B & B is given to pple with children. The local nightshelter was shut down a few years ago, never replaced!

2 A tenancy for life is not appropriate these days. How many three/four bedroom houses are taken up with one elderly person living in a family home? Whilst a person with children are in one bedroom B&Bs? The house size given should consistently remain the same as the household living there. Both my nxt door neighbours are single occupants of 3 and 4 bed council owned homes. That is seven bedrooms between two people

3 Stop selling off housing stock. Build quicker.

4 It will be the same people who begged to allow more in from war torn countries, that will be the NIMBYS not wanting new housing stock built near them, for the refugees to live in.

It is a massive problem, homelessness - and then they turn to drink or drugs to try to drown out how rubbish life is and how everyone has forgotton them and no one gives a toss - and it is true, we are so quick to house people from abroad in need, that we forget we have people in need, right here under our noses

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Changing policies on benefits would be a start - no targets for sanctions, going back to actually covering the full rent, paying the landlord direct and, the most important - not extending Universal Credit, as the people I know who have been unfortunate enough to have to claim it have all been left without any income whatsoever for months. One lost his job just at the beginning of November as his firm closed without warning, having not paid anybody for October's work. The 'month' he was told he'd have to wait for them to get confirmation that he hadn't deliberately made himself unemployed (not easy when the owner was nowhere to be seen and obviously, there was nobody to take calls, emails or to issue a letter, never mind redundancy or severance pay) was up just before Christmas. He still hadn't received a penny by February and, as a result of being in that no man's land, there was no housing benefit, no JSA, no child tax credits, no Free School Meals, absolutely nothing, so he was already being threatened with eviction and was only able to use the Food Bank a set number of times. At least with the system in different places, when one benefit screws up, there's a chance that others will be OK, so you aren't as likely to starve/become homeless - but I suppose that was the whole idea of UC, wasn't it?

[Deleted User]

I agree, I dread the day UC comes into our area. The government knows the system can't cope and yet they are still talking about expanding its use.

I don't think anyone in power actually cares. I don't think it matters which party it is, its the same. Wish people who had no idea how computer systems work weren't able to make decisions about major changes/new IT systems without having to check with experts rather than just listening to the sales talk of companies who want to make a killing. How many new IT systems have been found not fit for purpose after millions and millions have been spent on them?