[Ben Reeve Lewis is finding news thin on the ground this week …]
This week’s column is turning out to be the hardest of the year to do. There isn’t much being written about, even reliable stalwarts like Inside Housing clearly don’t have all their journalists back at the computer yet.
Same at my work, with every contact I try to call simply having an answerphone message telling me they aren’t back yet.
Even the homeless seem to be on holiday, normally come opening time a long line of people with housing problems snakes out of the door and around the corner, making our office look like a popular nightclub for the bereft. We have to waive the no trainers or hoods rule, otherwise nobody would get in at all.
Most significantly January the 1st saw the introduction of the new single room rate rules for housing benefit claimants, the SRR, which is now called the SAR (Shared Accommodation Rate) applies to all benefit claimants up to the age of 35.
In case this piece of madness passed you by it basically means that hundreds of thousands of benefit claimants will be doomed to live in bedsits until they are in middle age.
Writing on the Guild of Residential Landlords site, Guildy cites published figures produced by the Guardian and the Chartered Institute of Housing on the housing benefit cuts overall. Landlords not unreasonably moving away from benefit claimants and still escalating rents putting so many properties beyond people’s budgets it is estimated that 800,000 homes could be out of the reach of people on benefits.
London and the south east obviously being the most affected areas. Guildy writes
“It’s unlikely that the poor can migrate to other parts of the capital: in east London Newham there are twice as many claimants as there are low cost homes. There’s no room in the suburbs either. In Croydon 17,000 people will be chasing the 10,000 properties that can be paid for with local housing allowance levels”.
When these cuts were introduced, Lord Freud said the aim was to cut the budget and to force PRS landlords to lower their rents. I don’t for one minute believed they ever believed that the latter would happen.
You may recall around 6 months ago a leaked communiqué showed the government knew that homelessness would increase by 40,000 when HB cuts came in.
I know its old news now but lets not let the buggers forget the fact that it proved they don’t care about homelessness and we all know it.
Whenever I read the words “Shapps launches……” I get a sinking feeling, as if the vessel in question just slips quietly off of the causeway and into the Clyde, never to rise again but this is how 24 Dash’s article on a new initiative for the elderly begins.
Apparently a package of £200 million this year alone is being earmarked for housing services for the elderly. At first glance it actually looks quite good, more money for adaptations, money for handyperson services, help to move to more suitable accommodation. But once again I start to worry when I hear Mr Shapps pronouncing
“As we get older the last thing we want is for our properties to become our prisons. We want to be able to enjoy the comfort of our own homes in our later years”
As usual it is what the government don’t say rather than what they do that you have to watch. Mark my words there is something less altruistic behind this, there always is with this government. Or am I just getting paranoid?
Staying with the subject of the elderly Renter Girl ran an article about the perils of being an older PRS tenant and not being able to find anywhere to live because of prejudices that may be held by landlords or tenants not wanting a bewildered or senile tenant on their hands. Agents apparently refer to the elderly as ‘Flat Blockers’ for some strange reason.
Her advice to avoid housing problems being to never grow old, a view seconded by my Gran who used to say the same thing, the alternative of course being early death, which I am sure would keep the government happy, then they could save the £200 million they have put aside for the elderly.
Have you thought of that solution Mr Shapps? A little nudge on the back step, a few screws missing from the banister….go on you know you want to, think of the money to be saved.
Shelter have started the new year by highlighting figures that 1 million people have taken out pay day loans to pay rent and mortgage, as reported in the Telegraph and 7 million people have resorted to some sort of credit to keep a roof over their heads. Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis (no relation) said
“It is incredibly worrying that there is now evidence that people are using payday loans to meet housing costs. While it is an obvious temptation to grasp these loans as a lifeline, in the long run it may hurt more than help.”
Payday loans, for those of you who might not be in the know, are glorified and legalised loan sharking deals with exorbitant interest rates being levied on people with poor credit ratings. They are rapidly becoming a blight on 21st century UK living.
As if this isn’t bad enough I read, also in the Telegraph, that a growing number of bankers are prepared to sue their employers if their bonus’s are too small. How’s that for adding insult to injury? One claim for £1.5 million having been made by a banker who believes their 2011 bonus was miniscule.
So will 2012 be more grim and austere than last year? It certainly doesn’t show any signs of stopping that I can see. Will people grow tired of it though? That’s the interesting thing to watch.
I recently attended a training seminar on the new housing benefit rules run by our own HB team. While I was thinking the worst affected by January’s new changes would be people searching for new property, the trainer informed us all that the area they are most concerned about will be the couple under 35 who split up. The remaining tenant no longer being eligible for a couple rate of benefit and therefore losing their home as well as their relationship. Where are they going to go?
I am told that the Chinese have a curse that they use, “May you live in interesting times”. Maybe that’s it….we are all under a curse.
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.
Eviction picture is Wikipedia commons, loan shark picture by Jonny Goldstein
I too worry whenever Shapps has a ‘cunning plan.’ He’s not a great thinker: it will end badly. And the shared property rate for people under 35 will be a nightmare for separating couples with children: I have written about this, as it’s usually the man who leaves the marital property, and they will not be permitted to find a place that allowed to continue with a well-managed civilised shared custody arrangement. Also: by 35, most people are sick, sick of sharing, and in the regions, there is a glut of one and two bed properties, but not enough houses for multiple occupants and especially families.
People with kids will be ok Penny, the SAR doesnt apply to them. it will be seperating singletons who get hit.
I just read in Inside Housing this morning of the astonomic rise in councils placing people in B&B accommodation as a result of the HB cap. The law states that councils should only use B&B in emergencies, not for families and for no longer than 6 weeks, well thats gone out the window already then.
As I have written before, people who arent involved in housing tend to think of homelessness as street sleeping, a tiny percentage of people which very cleverly masks the real cases of sofa surfers, split families and people left in poverty taking out payday loans to meet the rent and going without food. It was announced this week that 1 million people are resorting to these legalised loansharks while 7 million pay their rent and mortgage on other forms of credit And this is a government on top of things is it?
Its a national scandal and a disgrace and not enough attention is brought to highlight how government policies are driving us into this. But I will at leats use my writing to make sure they dont get let off the hook
Sharing our blessings to a less fortunate people is a nice things that we must “acquired”. Thank’s for these very real article.
Vis-a-vis these payday loans isn’t the bigger crime that those terrible adverts are spoiling TV for couch potatoes like myself. You can’t watch an episode of CSI without having to suffer through umpteen adverts for Wonga.com with those awful puppets. Almost as annoying as that ad for group on.co.uk with that maniacally smiling demented young lady. For some reason it just makes me so annoyed that I could rush out and start biting the heads off kittens. Off topic rant over.
haha I rarely watch TV Chris so I havent seen them. I have heard that you can get some sort of advert blocker software for your digi box to cut them out. Probably expensive but then you could always take out a pay day loan for it so you dont have to look at them
Ben – I mean specifically the Dad who moves out, and has to share a place if he’s unemployed, while his partner stays in their rented home with the kids. And yes, homelessness is more than those blighter with sleeping skips. It can include being the unwelcome resident in the corner of a lounge.
That Shalani gets everywhere doesn’t she, with her weight loss spamming. So annoying.
OMG I hadn’t noticed it was a spamming comment! I am usually quite good at picking them up (all comments are moderated here by me). I must have been half asleep when I approved it.
I’ll leave it up so people will see what we are talking about.
Thanks, by the way Penny, for your comments, much appreciated.
I like the spammers who say: ‘Hy guys you shure ar having fun time here and I’ll certain be hanging with yoo doodes agen suun.’