Bedroom Tax

I have already made my point on bedroom tax and fully agree on Family Allow. being capped at 2 children. Some people seem to make a career of baby production at the expense of the taxpayer. After the war I could see the point, to encourage the replacement of the population lost during the conflict, but surely there is a limit to how many people we can fit into this pint pot of an island.

The problem is that those who will mostly be affected are those who have been living in a place for years. There is also a distinct lack of smaller, say, one bedroomed rented property in many areas.

To comply with the new benefit regulations poeple who are in a property where they have lived for years and brought up their children may have to consider moving out of their familiar area. This is known to have a devastating effect on their lives. what will suffer is peoples general health and the established social support networks available to them etc. This is very bad indeed for community cohesion.

I can see why social housing agencies want to encourage this and it's not a bad idea in principle but unless these smaller housing units are readily available in the localities where the people currently live it will cause many problems.
Another daft government idea which has been churned out as policy with no consideration at of the possible effects.

See my previous post. Re the availibilty of smaller accomodation units.

This stupid idea will only affect those who are in rented property who need housing benefit, which means they are already on a low income.

Your abilty to choose where you live if you dont have money is non existent.

You will not usually be able to move out of that area as you will not have an entitlement in an area where you have not lived for sometime.
New social housing applicants already are restricted to a size of property suitable for their needs and the housing benefit is geared to this.

I make the point again that surely those in the most need should have the housing. Those who are in overcrowded accommodation must find it hard to be sympathetic to the complaints of those with space they don't actually need. Life is hard. There is only so much cake so it has to be sliced fairly.

So all you GN ers with elderly relatives! If you don't now have them, imagine some!

Supposing your 80+ parents are living in a two or three bedroom rented house on housing benefit in an area where they have lived since marrying. They know the neighbours and the area, have lots of support from old friends and a supportive child, lives nearby.

The only available one bedroom accomodation housing suitable for an elderly person likely to have increasing mobilty needs, that is available, is on the other side of the city on an isolated estate.

Added to this hundreds of other elderly social housing pensioners on housing benefit are also being asked to move to smaller accommodation of which there is not enough available. Should the housing benefit for your parents be reduced for as long as it takes to find them new accommodation. I suspect they might be terrible stressed about this.

Would you be happy with them moving to the other side of the city? Away from easy contact with you and their old friends.

You cannot afford to bale them out on this.

How would you feel your parents would react at being forceably relocated? Early death is a common factor when this is applied to care home residents.
In many circumstances this really is inhumane.

This is what this policy is likely to mean unless a bit more government sense prevails.

nellie but it doesn't apply to pensioners!

My rent is not OTT...£425 a month......there is very little cheaper and that is in no go areas of the city.

I live in a small, terraced two up two down with a backyard. Amongst other things I have agoraphobia so my home is my safe place and is important to maintaining my mental health. Our two children aged 4 and 7 come to stay every weekend and during the school holidays. They share the second bedroom. I receive ESA and DLA plus my DH works part time as a cleaner and earns £104 a week. He also saves the government money by acting as my unpaid carer.

The government say that we have too many bedrooms and that we should pay 25% of our council tax. This has increased our monthly expenditure by just under £150 a month. The benefit level was set assuming that housing benefit was received. As it's now been reduced that gives us £150 a month less to live on.

Up to last year both my OH and I were fully paid up members of society. We both worked full time and paid tax and national insurance and contributed to pensions schemes taking responsibilty for our old age. Now due to my illness I can't work at all and my OH has had to reduce his hours. Our world has been turned upside down and tbh we feel as if we're being punished. I'm sorry to all those taxpayers who are having to keep me but I thought that's what our caring society was supposed to be about. We worked hard and paid in to the system just in case something happened. Now it has, we are made to feel bad as if we are scroungers living off the 'hardworking taxpayer'.

And before anyone says 'we don't mean people like you' remember there are lots of people like me who have been affected by these changes.

I think with respect VQ that we really are not talking about you. I have said many times on various threads that there is only so much cake and that my preference is for more of it to go to the deserving and not to the undeserving. I cannot think of any posts where someone has suggested there should be no safety net for those who fall on hard times.

So who decides what defines the deserving and undeserving poor.

We either look after people or we don't. I'm not someone who thinks that healthy people should be able to sit on the dole for years or live off benefits as a life choice but despite what the media and government would have us believe such people are in the minority.

To me it matters not how many are the underserving poor, however many there are they should not be subsidised. In the same was as someone who breaks the law should be punished. If it is wrong it is wrong. If someone is capable of supporting themselves I think they should do so. If they are not, I think we should look after them. Simple.

So to get at those who somehow are undeserving we all get smashed with the same bat.

Vampire how long have you lived in your terraced house and when you were both working full time, did you not try to buy your own house?

But I don't think anyone is smashing you all with the same bat! Why do you think that?

moved I think Frank is advocating no safety net. At least not one funded by him.

vq "who decides the deserving and undeserving?" Exactly! And you are talking from bitter experience.

Galen I'm so glad I haven't read that thread.

Just read his latest contribution!

It was only a matter of time before the phrase "undeserving poor" reared its terrible ugly head once again in normal conversation. How rapidly the UK is reverting to pre-Dickensian values.

It was AlisonMa who first mentioned the 'undeserving poor' and got roundly told my many of us that such Dickensian talk is no longer appropriate.
She also first mooted the idea on this forum that Child Benefit should be paid for only the first two children - Not Ian Duncan Smith!
It does not seem to matter how many times the true statistics on large families and benefit fraud are posted - some members persist in their mistaken belief that there are hordes of children being born, mostly to single mothers, and that a high percentage of benefits claimants are cheats.
We can only hope that the smug and self-righteous find themselves in need of help at some time, and come to regret their pitiless attitude.

Iain Duncan Smith certainly did put the proposal of capping child benefit at 2 children foward. As for the term 'deserving and undeserving poor' it's been bandied about since Victorian times - I don't think you can seriously blame any one gransnet member for using a description you consider to be distasteful, Greatnan.

Why can't I - she said it!

Children!

And no one else on Gransnet has ever said it? How very odd...

Not to my knowledge, until today - believe me, I would have noticed!

It is clear that the government is pushing the "scroungers" agenda - which is their term for "undeserving poor" . This conveniently distracts people from the fact that there is huge unemployment in the poorer parts of the country - lots of people who are desperate to work - but there are no jobs.
Ana the term was used in the most horrible way in Victorian times to imply that those who lived in slums and "did not try to better themselves" or were "not respectable" were to blame for the state of their lives. Nothing to do with the inequalities in their society or the lack of any humane safety nets in what was then an extremely rich country.
Workhouses were a vile manifestation of this thinking in which parents and children were forcibly and permanently separated, amongst other atrocities. There are lots if things that were accepted then that are not now, and lots of terms that have, fortunately, gone out of common usage. Things like "fallen woman" and "bastard" for instance.
I agree that "deserving and undeserving poor" is a deeply offensive term.