Housing Benefit for under 25s

I do think that businesses could well be employing - and training - more young people. They have a responsibility to society as well, it is not just the responsibility of government.

Well said.

I think we need to decide when adulthood begins.
Employers ought to have to pay anyone over 18 enough to be able to pay their rent before housing benefit can be taken away from them.
How can we expect people under 25 to behave as adults when they are not treated as such?

I lived in digs when I was first in London aged 19- salary 11.50- digs with breakfast 7.50! Would kids these days agree to spend that % on accommodation = no money for anything else apart from survival food?
Same for the room I shared with a nurse after that- only £5.00 each- no breakfast of course...

Then we lived in a filthy, cold, damp flat - which cost us a huge amount and could not afford to heat (only gas fire in the lounge which had to be fed with 50p pieces- it cost us almost all OH's salary (I was recovering from severe accident). We then lived in a room 8ft by 5ft- with a sink and a single 2'5 bed. Then in a room in the attic of a Victorian Hospital in Stoke- until we were able to buy a small semi which we furnished with banana boxes, a home-made bed base and home-made bean bags and second hand old stuff. Nobody handed us anything on a plate, that is for sure.

Jess's OP was about those who cannot for one reason or another.

And that is quite right. A caring society should care for those who, for one reason or another, are unable to live at home with parents, such as I mentioned in an earlier post.

However, it is not the duty of the government to act in loco parentis for young people up to the age of 25 who make it a life-style choice to live on their own.

I think we need to decide when adulthood begins.

I am sorry to say durhamjen but I think some of your ideas actually hurt the people you want to help. We have a legal age when people take on adult responsibilities for their actions. Are you suggesting we change that?

Other than the legal position, we grow toward adulthood from day one. If we have a supportive family it helps but if you don't there is really no choice but to learn for ourselves.

I've just realised that the OP's link is actually dated June 2012 - hardly current!

Are you in a time-warp, Jess?

www.nidirect.gov.uk/benefits-for-young-people

Is this more up-to-date?

Ana, I said that on page 1.

You obviously did not understand what I meant, Gracesgran.
The legal age for becoming adult is supposed to be 18. But now between the ages of 18 and 25 people will not be given adult protection if they need social housing. They do not have an adult minimum wage until they are 21, therefore if they are on the minimum wage they cannot afford to live anywhere but with their parents, if they have any.

Therefore I repeat what I said; we need as a society to decide when adulthood begins. It is not my ideas that are hurting them.

And this explains it

england.shelter.org.uk/get_advice/housing_benefit_and_local_housing_allowance/what_is_housing_benefit/housing_benefit_for_young_people

Many young people live in shared accommodation - in fact most of us did if we were not living with parents or with a partner.

Rose, that's out of date. The government stopped EMA in England. You can still get it in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Or a grotty bedsit, as I did. It's expectations that have changed over the years.

Sorry, I was referring to your previous post, nidirect, rose.
The Shelter reference from rose is for single people up to 35, who are only allowed benefit for a room in a shared house.
What were you all doing when you were 35?

What's that got to do with anything, durhamjen?

I'm afraid I am beginning to feel that the system that told people they could draw out even if they had paid nothing or little in that has helped to change these expectations Ana.

Struggling with a 15% mortgage in London where we really did not want to be.

Sympathy or empathy for the plight of single 35 year olds who do not earn enough to live in a place of their own?

You're right, of course, Gracesgran.

And it really has nothing to do with this thread. Why did I answer that (duh)

So you're assuming that all GN members were affluent members of society by the time they were 35, with jobs, houses, husbands etc. and that none of us can possibly empathise with a low-paid person of the same age...?

(Hollow laugh)

We were moving down to Hampshire because my husband had a job in London, which he didn't want, but his office had closed down in Warrington and he was transferred.
Moving from Peterborough to Hampshire, for the kids schooling, we were laughed at when we said what mortgage we could afford. Oh, and I did not want to teach in London.
Two decent wages and we could not afford to live there.
But there must be people who live in Hampshire now on the minimum wage, who will have to move away from their support groups because they cannot afford housing.
That's what it's got to do with, Ana.

Forgive me for saying so, Ana, but I do not see much sympathy or empathy in any of your posts on this subject.

We are looking at this the wrong way up.

House prices shot up under the last government partly because it suited Gordon Brown to let us think we were well off.
Banks lent too much too easily.
People were advised that buy-to-let was the way to ensure a pension
Not enough new housing has been built for far too long.

Consequently houses are overpriced in some areas and rents are far too high. Landlords are used to being paid high rents subsidised by housing benefit and somehow this has all got to return to a sensible level more in line with wages.

It is up to the taxpayer to care for the vulnerable, the young who have just left care, but not an adult who just would like their own place paid for by the taxpayer.

Housing benefit should be a safety net not a 'rite of passage' for those who fancy leaving home.