[Ben Reeve Lewis is getting depressed by the rising homelessness figures …]
Last Friday morning, whilst I was beavering away at work preparing for that afternoon’s council event, ‘landlord’s day’, I received an email from Frazzy with a link to an article in London’s free newspaper Metro. She titled her email to me “Homelessness is rising and these twats are out playing tennis” how could you fail to be interested?
Boris and Camo looked a bit set up to be honest, that hoary old tabloid favourite of politicians photographed doing something daft while Rome burns approach, very easy to do. Whilst the London mayor was doing a great blonde Orang-utan impression, opposite Camo’s howler monkey the article was actually a serious one about concerns over homelessness.
Most of you know by now that I am a Tenancy Relations Officer in South East London. My remit being to negotiate in disputes between landlords and tenants, prosecute landlords in extreme cases and also to defend mortgage borrowers in repossession claims made by their lenders.
To be honest? Give me a baseball bat wielding Old Kent Road thug over a bank anytime.
The mortgage lenders are doing the same thing as the rogue landlords but are simply hiding behind the law and a family friendly website to do it. At least ‘Big Ron’ has a bit of honesty about him.
I am part of the council’s homelessness team, in that my legal expertise is used to prevent homelessness by spotting legal infractions or by going to court to get injunctions to get the illegally evicted back into their homes.
Despite being stationed in that office of around 50 homelessness crew I actually forget I am part of that world, even though I see around 20 people queuing up everyday with their worldly belongings in black bin liners half an hour before the doors open. It’s like something from a Dickens novel and yet most people don’t realise it is still like this.
So I set to thinking about the whole housing crisis, the dearth of properties available, high rents and mortgage repossessions in terms of homelessness and where things are going and had a look at the Herriot Watt university report mentioned in the Metro article and an opinion expressed by Nicholas Timmins in the Financial Times.
Homelessness figures have been declining in the past 10 years but have shown an alarming 11% increase lately and nicely coinciding with cuts to housing benefit. I certainly see it in our office where there is hardly a seat available in reception most days.
One point of the Herriot Watt report mentions the disincentivisation to rent to benefit claimants created by the government’s obstinate refusal to allow housing benefit payments to go directly to landlords. The current scheme being as unpopular with tenants as it is with landlords.
When I was busy pressing the flesh at our Landlord’s Day last Friday I was asking everyone I met what we would need to do to get landlords to work closely with us and repeatedly I heard the same thing “pay us direct and we will have more trust in HB tenants”.
The government’s argument for maintaining this system is that direct payments infantilise tenants and they should be encouraged to manage their affairs, in the same way that working tenants have to. I understand that point, I think people should take responsibility for their lives but I don’t think that you achieve that by simply dumping £1,000 a month into someone’s bank account that wasn’t there before. It takes more than that. It takes education, support, training.
On top of my landlord/tenant responsibilities I also have to do our council’s Mortgage rescue Scheme work. I was surprised, having attended a recent meeting with the Homes and Communities Agency who administrates this nonsense that out of the paltry few people who actually qualify for the MRS within a very short period of time 34% are in rent arrears. MRS clears their debts and makes them housing association tenants at an affordable rent, so why do people still end up in financial dire straits?
It goes beyond unemployment and the recession. The fact is, as a nation we do not educate our kids in any form of even basic money management skills at school. When my daughter Holly was studying history for her GCSEs her homework consisted mainly of researching the genocide of mid-19th century American expansionism. I am sure, when she has sleep overs with her mates she continues to be amazed at the amount of times the “Secession of the Black Hills” pops into the conversation.
If we taught our kids how to manage money, how bills work, how to prioritise, even how to invest money wisely I think rent and mortgage arrears would be a far more contained problem than it is.
But back to the report.
Professor Suzanne Fitzpatrick of Heriot Watt said “Government reforms, in combination with the pressures of the economic downturn, seem certain to increase all forms of homelessness, from rough sleepers on our streets to homeless people hidden out of sight,”.
Grant Shapp last week urged those facing problems to seek early support but how is that going to help when, as Leslie Morphy, chief exec of Crisis accurately said “We need the government to change course now or risk returning us to the days of countless lives facing the debilitating effect of homelessness,”.
We can educate our young – we should do, and we can urge people to seek assistance with housing problems but we also need help from our politicians in creating a housing system that isn’t fighting against itself.
- Staff cuts in local authorities mean there simply aren’t the amount of ‘Boots on the ground’ that there were 3 or 4 years ago – which means dealing with rogues and licensing HMOs proves a logistical nightmare.
- Grants and funding streams have been cut so there aren’t the financial packages available for people that there used to be – meaning it is more difficult to raise housing standards.
- The system of housing benefit payments going to tenants – is wearing away landlord’s patience with HB Tenants.
- Escalating rents – are causing a rise in rent arrears, evictions and homelessness applications.
- Banks unsympathetic to borrowers in difficulty and the FSA’s recent announcement that they frown on transferring to interest only mortgages – means 10s of thousands of people are going to lose their mortgaged homes in the coming year.
- Planning permission that at least the government has acknowledged needs speeding up is being dragged back by Nimbyism and an increase in regulation that allows greater scope for blocking applications, – meaning the homes that need to be built to get us out of this crisis are going to be long in coming.
- Legal aid being cut for a range of housing related issues, including illegal eviction, which let’s not forget is a criminal offence – putting responsibility for action back onto staff-cut local authorities.
- The steadfast refusal of the government to license letting agents – works against the professionalisation of the rental industry and supports a growth, in a booming industry, in cowboys and crooks opening up shop on a daily basis.
- The imminent disaster that is coming through increasing the age limit of the single room rate from 25 to 35 in January 2012 – will see even more landlord’s turning away from benefit tenants and a rise in arrears and evictions.
This and more is the current nature of the housing crisis, 2012 version.
I hear the government make pronouncements about these various factors but I can’t name a single plan or policy that aims to seriously address them, other than suggesting that councils use boats and caravans to house the homeless and that people worried for their home seek advice early on.
As the posters say “Keep calm and carry on”.
Ben Reeve Lewis
Ben has started Home Saving Expert, to share his secrets to defending people’s homes from mortgage repossession Visit his blog and get some help and advice on mortgage difficulties and catch up with him on Twitter and check out his free report “An Encouraging note on Dealing with your Mortgage Lender” and have it sent right to your inbox.
A point about planning – according to this week’s Private Eye, 80% of planning applications are waved through and of those rejected a further 80% are allowed on appeal. So with a pass rate of 96% in total I can’t see how it can be that restrictive.
Private Eye posits that the real reason for the failure to build new homes is simply because housebuilders want to keep the numbers of new homes down and thus be in a position to artificially inflate prices. They also claim this was waved through by all Governments ever since the house building rush of the 1980s. The planning regulations will allow them to build on green field sites which is, allegedly, cheaper, yet who’s to say that more homes will actually be built?
Also, as regards Cameron’s picture, I didn’t think “howler monkey,” I thought something a lot ruder!!!!
Yeah that view on deliberately holding back to inflate prices came up on an article I read last week by I think it was Property Newshound.I dont know if it is just conspiracy theory stuff thugh. HOwever, since writing the article above, which I did on Wednesday, I have also found out more about strategic land banks, that many big investors put their money into, buying land without planning permission, meaning ‘Cheap’, in the hope that one day they will get it and they will be sitting pretty, and how when granting planning applications permission is “Presumed” without checking and that a large proportion of these land banks are not in cities where they are most needed but on the edge of villages etc.
So while the country desperately needs homes, multui millionaire investors are playing top trumps. It makes me want to cry with frustration and at the same time want to shoot them in the back of the head.
No…..definately Howler Monkey
Afternoon Ben,
Nice article but I notice that there is no mention of tenant responsibility but only what can the government should do. I had the pleasure of working on a number of homeslessness projects, namely social letting agencies, and I found there were large number of private landlords who were prepared to take HB claimaints but were sceptical due to bad press and their mistrust of the HB department. However, with certain procedures in place, a team of staff recruited from the private sector and a promise to pay HB direct to the agent, the social letting agency model has grown around the country.
Even as a social letting agency we had to evict tenants for bad behaviour or failing to pay their shortfall and this was even with a dedicated tenancy support worker funded with supporting people money.
Sadly, I think we have an issue with a number of people in society who believe that the taxpayer owes them a living and until that changes, the vicious circle of homeslessness will continue.
Kind regards
Darrel
Agree 100% Darrel. My post is about what the government should be doing to help but I admit it isnt the full picture and I think ‘Twas ever thus’, even removing the welfare state wont necessarily cure irresponsible behaviour.
I recently read Peter Ackroyd’s brilliant history of London and found that every century has had street crime and gangs, even crazy non politically motivated riots like our recent crop. My favourite being how in the 18th centruy the guild of pie makers baked the biggest pie in the world for the Lord Mayor’s show, which was towed on the back of a horse dawn cart. the crowd attacked it and when the soldiers managed to clear them away there were only a few crumbs left haha.
There are always people that cant manage money or who duck responsibilities, I have utopian vision of housing in the future but I’m not so naive as to think that even if it were to appear that there still wouldnt be difficult tenants, homeless people or even the odd rogue landlord.
When I first started my career in a Peckham doss house age 18 and started to get to know the guys I was struck very quickly by the fact that for some, believe it or not, it was a lifestyle choice. This was in the days when we had social housing. I used to help them move in to flats we provided, they were given furniture and a genrous lump sum to get started and had support workers to get them into their new life only to see their faces crop up on the TV at Christams time queueing up for dinner at Crisis. A few days later they would appear at our doors again looking a bit sheepish. When I asked them why their common response was they missed the life.
Darrell is right, we do have a problem who think that society owes them a living and have a colossal sense of entitlement. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not anti-welfare state, however, I do think that it shouldn’t be the godawful spiderous shibboleth it’s grown into.
I do think that the excesses of certain parts of the welfare state infantilise folks and would refer people to Winston Smith’s blog on this about being a supported housing worker and later with the Youth Offending Team. I also had one client who was on a public law defence (his mother’d left and passingly tried to assign tenancy to him, he did very little and didn’t pay any rent, thinking the omnibenevolent state would bail him out) who was completely unbothered that he was ABOUT TO LOSE HIS HOME because he was under the impression, reinforced by the experience of years, that someone would bail him out.
(The someone wasn’t the Court, he got a 28 day possession order.)
I also had another client on a public law defence who came in with an ex-Housing Officer for moral support and she branded the Housing Trust’s quite frankly very reasonable approach (they’d effectively let him run up £11,000 arrears on his temp. accomm. before booting him out, given him many warnings etc.) as “shocking” and expounded about how when she was housing-officering, every eviction was a failure. When this person was booted out, he rang us up and claimed it was somehow our fault. Gnagh.
I can undo their trousers, and I can point them downwind, but I can’t urinate for them. I sometimes feel like an increasing number of folks in housing want me to urinate for them. And I’ve not been in the trade all that long.
Do you think, Ben, that people are getting less able to take responsibility? You’ve been in this sort of thing a long time, so…
@JS After some thought I have published your comment as it is a good one, but can we please keep bodily functions out of it in future. I don’t mind, but some people might find it offensive and I don’t want to upset them or put them off reading the blog. :)
What a bizarre image JS haha
I dont know if people take less responsibility these days or if I am just getting older and less patient.
I was on the dole once when I was about 18 and I remember signing on at Woolwich labour exchange and there was a building site opposite and the guys working cash in hand used to walk in covered in dust to sign on and then go back on the site and nobody batted an eyelid and that was in 1912. So I suppose my answer is no I dont think people are worse these days.There has always been people who hold those values.
I interviewed a chinese guy yesterday, a very intelligent IT Consultant struggling with his mortgage since being made redundant. Rather than sign on he has been using his savings for the past few months to pay the mortgage but finally caved in and went for help only to be told that because he hadnt signed on earlier he wasnt eligible for the benefit that would help him pay his mortgage. Our conversation went like this:-
Me: You should have signed on straight away and then you wouldnt be in this position.
Him: (Fractured English) Yes I realise that now but I didnt think it was moral to sign on if I had money
Me: Thats commendable but you’ve made life hard for yourslef
Him: (Thinking very hard) So the system seems to be if I work hard and support myself I get no assistance, but if I do nothing I get penalised?
Me: Thats the game
Him: (Thinking even harder for a minute) Then what is point of working?
The words hitting/nail and head springs to mind
Focusing on the LHA being paid direct to tenants for a moment: if you’re on your uppers, no food, no money and barely a bus fare should you decide to cheer yourself up, receiving a £200-400 payment from the Council is going to make YOUR day! Will you give it to your landlord? If you err even slightly on the side of naughty you’ll treat yourself, pay off the debts of those shouting the loudest and finally, buy Basics noodles and cider from Sainsburys. I went to rent collect as usual today and one of my boys had his wallet stolen at a recent Job Fair (yes, I do believe him and saw his 50 copies of his CV as proof before he went – along with a pep talk from me) and he had absolutely nothing. LHA was due in yesterday or today but nothing turned up in his bank so I bunged him a fiver so he could eat as the Sally Army isn’t open at the weekend. Best one was when a council paid one of my tenants 8 weeks rent of over £1,000 JUST BEFORE CHRISTMAS! She’d spent £400 before we got to it a few days later.
PLEASE if anyone from the Government is listening, could you pay LHA direct to landlords for everyone’s sake so we can go back to business as normal and prevent our towns looking like something out of a Dickens novel. Thank you – from a Landlord who’ll sadly be putting “No DSS” in her ads until this is sorted.
Tessa, apologies, I’ll do that.
Ben, I have a client over mortgage arrears just like that. He was living off savings following loss of job because he found the concept of living off benefit left a nasty taste in the mouth. I managed to persuade him to apply for benefit by saying that he’s worked, and paid his National Insurance stamps, and that is what paying NI is for, so in effect it was his own money he was claiming back.
I agree that there’s always been this sort of mentality about but my impression is that we now have a system that encourages it (and an educational system that encourages low expectations but I’ll not bore you with my thoughts on this.) As the person in your example said, “then what is point of working?” Once you fall into benefit dependency, you seem to be very at risk of getting stuck:
– If you get a job, you’re working a month in hand at least and no doubt the DWP/council will ignore you updating them as to this and assess an overpayment that they want NOW.
– If you get a low paid job, you’re now working X hours per week but only a few pounds a week better off. If you factor in travel costs and the value of your time, you might actually be worse off.
– If your wage means you’re ineligible for Housing Benefit there are areas, mainly in London, where you’d best be earning £lots in order to afford your rent. The more I think about this the more emigrating oop north seems attractive – lots of demand for housing solicitors there yet lower costs of living.
To be fair, though, if I were forced to be a dole bludger I’d hate it. Not because of poverty, not because of the affront to my pride, but because I’d just be bored. There’s only so many episodes of Jeremy Kyle one can watch before one just ragequits the telly.
It really is the biggest of sticking points and a major headache for the housing crisis.
Lord Freud, JS’s ‘Triple idiot’ who is championing this nonsense holds that the unemployed must be made to manage their money so that when they find themselves back in work they will be able to cope like the rest of us. Well Freudy old mate, money management skills are just as crap among the employed. Presuming that the unemployed cant money manage just because they are on benefits is insulting in the extreme.
He keeps banging on about choice, but under the old system tenants did have the ‘Choice’, of whether they wanted the HB to go to themselves or their landlord. That choice has been taken away and only in politico land could that that lack of choice be re-labelled ‘Choice’.
My wages get paid into my account on the 18th of every month. I set up a standing order to pay the rent direct to my landlord, why cant HB tenants treat HB payments as a standing order? Its the same thing.
And finally HMOLandlady, you could advise your tenants to set up a local credit union account. Anyone can do it and it only costs £1. HB can pay into the account and a standing order can be set up for the rent that the tenant cant get at. Its a well known but underused facility.
Sorry JS our posts went in at the same time.
I bought the big issue yesterday for the first time in ages and read founder John Byrne’s leader column on the same subject. He reminds us what benefit was brought in for after WW2 and a country crippled by the depression of the 1930s and how this wonderful safety net has now created it’s own problems of people reliant on it who dont know anything else.
If, heaven forfend, I found myself out of work I would get out there and offer my time or services as a volunteer, or blog more.
I listened to a youth worker on yesterday’s breakfast TV talking about the reason they rioted. He said flatly that people in their position have nothing to lose. I think he was right, in that he wasnt over complicating it like so many do, he was simply saying “Why not” and I think that is spot on the money.
But if people feel disnefranchised or disempowered by unemployment and prospects why wait for people like Lord Freud to do something for you or Ian Duncan-Smith to wonder how hard it must be for you to buy Kobi beef when living in a ghetto.
Get out there and empower yourself by doing something. All I see is the queue of people outside our local benefits office at 9am drinking white lightning and waiting for the inevitable first daily visit of the cop car to a fight in reception.
And I dont mean that in a ‘Get a job’ fashion, I mean it as a human being, why throw your lives away waiting for someone to dig you out?
Another brilliant idea – I’ll look into credit unions as it could be good for my guys. My mantra to any tenant with a vacant look in their eye is “Well, what do you DO all day?” and hand them the address of the nearest Voluntary Service. I also give them a list of minor paint and cleaning jobs – weeding is always a favourite! (Yes, I do pay for weedkiller, paint and cleaning products so there’s no excuse!)
Here is a list of all the credit unions that I am aware of, that offer a service to collect HB payments and pass them on to landlords: http://www.landlordlaw.co.uk/content/credit-unions-which-will-accept-local-housing-allowance-payments
If you know of any others please let me know and I will add them to the list.
Ah well done Tessa, I didnt know there was a list of them. They can also help out in other ways in that if you save with them, after 3 months you can borrow twice what you put in at 0% interest. One of my best mates, a young widow in Galway, puts what she can in all year and it makes Xmas easier for her and her daughter.
One pattern I see is people with mortgage problems who are usually used to working, arrive for their appointments early and have all their paperwork whereas clients I interiew who have been unemployed for quite a while are usually late or phone in to say they are too busy and can we re-schedule.
I feel very strongly that it is the ‘Doing’ that makes the difference to you. My mum used to say “If you want something done, ask a busy person”.
When I was last on the dole for about 6 months years back I noticed myself slipping. Getting up later and not shaving and I realised what was happening so I set the alarm for 7am everyday, even though I had nothing to get up for and put on a suit, which I hardly ever wear. I got another job shortly after that.
I think there is a dangerous, mind-numbing tedium that sets in when you let it slide and pretty soon that is your reality. I really would get out there and work for nothing if necessary, not for the employer/organisation’s sake but for your own. Self worth comes from within, not a government initiative