PSA on old-school housing policy and trends

[xxxlibris]

Via a couple of friends who have direct policy and personal experience of the upcoming changes around housing benefits, 'Big Society' plans and the like, some information for people who are going to be affected by these changes

Comments

[valkyriekaren]

Well, as a general principle I'm in favour of more greatcoats and breeches in public life. But I do wish the didn't come with the morals of the period. Or the Invisible Man, as in those drawings.

[ultraruby]

Argh, this (by which I mean 'this new government and all the things it's doing and saying') is all makes me so angry and confused I can't even really think about it well enough to form a reasoned response

[valkyriekaren]

Apparently the Tory person he was talking to said that it would all be ok, because after 5 years or so 'philanthropy will kick in'.

You know in the first episode of Black Books when Manny swallows The Little Book of Calm and can only mumble platitudes like, "Why not have a relaxing bubble bath?" and "f you get angry, try a deep breathing exercise"? Well, sometimes when arch-libertarian Tories talk, it's like they've swallowed The Fountainhead.

You want to see what a country with no governmental intervention looks like? Take a trip to Somalia.

[sinsense]

Horatio Alger wrote tons and tons of youn adult books about scrappy little poor boys who bootstrap their way to the top; what's often left out of the popular memory of Alger's novels is that the hero is always helped by a philanthropic older man. It's a necessity of the "bootstrap" mythos.

[valkyriekaren]

A modern version would probably have Simon Cowell and Alan Sugar.

[nixwilliams]

whoa.

... kind of rethinking the shininess of a move to the uk at the moment ...

[mrs_leroy_brown]

- Local Housing Allowance (LHA) will be calculated using the bottom 30% of rents.

I don't even understand how this is going to be possible in London. Is this 30% of each borough's bottom, or London overall?

In other words, people are going to be unable to cover their rent on HB from October, probably. Oh god another thing to worry about. Fuck.

[valkyriekaren]

Within each local authority. It used to be calculated at the 50th percentile (i.e average for the size/type of property) but now it will be calculated at the 30th percentile.

[thekumquat]

Given that the modal rent is probably around the 25th percentile and most of the variation is likely to be in the top 25% (lotsa cheap houses all costing similar, not very many much better ones), is this likely to actually make much difference? (obviously the reducing HB by 10% will be nasty and the max rate of HB will be a big problem for larger families)

Some years back it always seemed to be the case that the HB never covered rent as the LAs never updated their idea of local rent costs unless you forced an assessment - I heard LHA improved that a bit.

[plumsbitch]

Yeah, LHA was a vast improvement.

It makes a difference in areas with high property prices, where in real terms housing benefit will drop by about 20% from October. This is a vast drop to try and make up on a low income/state benefits.

As mrs_leroy_brown says, it effectively makes vast chunks of London and the South East unliveable in on HB, which will probably result in rises in evictions, homelessness and people being forced to move a long way from their neighbourhoods/support networks etc.

:(

[whatsagirlgotta]

This also explains the revival of victorian style workmen's boots. Now for Alan Bleasdale to start producing wry brilliant TV, although if Ken Loach could keep quiet I wouldn't mind.

Flippancy aside, dear god, this whiffs terribly of my youth. All the Health Service measures are throw-backs too. They've all been done before, and didn't work then either, though of course the cost to make these changes won't even be matched by savings.