Council considers plans to change criteria for social housing (From Watford Observer)

The Criminal shortage of Social Housing is down to just one thing, them selling off council housing and not building ONE replacement house with the proceeds! Now the poorest tenants are being used as scapegoats by this sham Government and are being taxed for having what is seen as a spare bedroom even if technically it is not! Stop using the poor as your whipping boys Cameron!

Social housing in Watford should be for people who are in Watford or have strong links to it and very good reasons for wanting to come back. Social housing should also be about helping those that cant help themselves so no it shouldn’t be available to people who can afford to rent or buy privately.

HN12, the right to buy has indeed reduced the amount of social housing in the area however even if it hadnt happened you would still have a lot more people on the waiting list than properties available. Long waiting lists are also NOT a new thing and existed even in the best of economic times under the last Labour government, who by the way werent oppossed to right to buy either.

What Labour did do was limit the local authorities ability to refuse right to buy requests which meant unscrupulous lenders were giving mortgages to tenants who could never afford them (I know of at least two examples where mortgages where given to people who had no income and whose rent was paid by housing benefit!) and then when the inevitable arrears accrued repossed the properties and sold them on for profit as they had been bought at a discount.

Hornets number 12 fan wrote:
The Criminal shortage of Social Housing is down to just one thing, them selling off council housing and not building ONE replacement house with the proceeds! Now the poorest tenants are being used as scapegoats by this sham Government and are being taxed for having what is seen as a spare bedroom even if technically it is not! Stop using the poor as your whipping boys Cameron!

...but that 'ex-council' housing is now 'social housing', after tenants voted for it.

So the actual number of homes stays the same.

(the added thing is that the Housing Trust were able to access £66million of funds to improve the ex-council housing homes)

As to the the changes in housing benefit, why don’t people get it? If you rent privately and receive housing benefit you only are entitled to benefit for the number of rooms you need. i.e. a couple with on child is entitled to two bed rate, a single person to single bed rate. This I'm sure no one can argue isnt right.

Then why are people saying that people who rent from social housing should not have the same rules applied to them? Why should a couple with one child or indeed no children living at home anymore have the rent paid for a three bed house? More than that why should tax payers pay for someone to live in a house with one or two extra rooms that they don’t need? And why should people be allowed to under occupy at tax payers expense when there are other families who actually need a bigger property but cant get one because someone who doesn’t need it is occupying one?

There simply is no argument against this change, there may be examples where exceptions need to be made but the principle itself is sound.

garston tony wrote:
As to the the changes in housing benefit, why don’t people get it? If you rent privately and receive housing benefit you only are entitled to benefit for the number of rooms you need. i.e. a couple with on child is entitled to two bed rate, a single person to single bed rate. This I'm sure no one can argue isnt right.

Then why are people saying that people who rent from social housing should not have the same rules applied to them? Why should a couple with one child or indeed no children living at home anymore have the rent paid for a three bed house? More than that why should tax payers pay for someone to live in a house with one or two extra rooms that they don’t need? And why should people be allowed to under occupy at tax payers expense when there are other families who actually need a bigger property but cant get one because someone who doesn’t need it is occupying one?

There simply is no argument against this change, there may be examples where exceptions need to be made but the principle itself is sound.

@garston Tony i can see what your saying and in an ideal world would make sense but what you seem to be falling for is the old Tory ploy of making everybody watch what other people are getting then turning people against each other, what you got to understand is a house is not just a house its a home its a place full of precious memories and sentiment a place where you raise your children a place where you have had birthday's, Christmas's, Easter's for decades and for some have lived all their lives with loved ones who have since passed this is especially true for a lot of old people, years ago people rented they didn't buy they didn't have the right to buy, but they had that home for as long as they needed it, now those greedy bankers have managed to decimate the economy the powers that be are turning people like you against each other and yet the greedy sods that started all this are still getting their six figure bonuses the shortage of housing would also be a lot less severe if the floodgates for economic immigrants was also shut but that wouldn't help cameron and his business buddy's get a cheap labour force for their businesses and this would squeeze their profit margins, look at the big picture and not what your neighbour two doors down is getting and your not !

garston tony wrote:
As to the the changes in housing benefit, why don’t people get it? If you rent privately and receive housing benefit you only are entitled to benefit for the number of rooms you need. i.e. a couple with on child is entitled to two bed rate, a single person to single bed rate. This I'm sure no one can argue isnt right.

Then why are people saying that people who rent from social housing should not have the same rules applied to them? Why should a couple with one child or indeed no children living at home anymore have the rent paid for a three bed house? More than that why should tax payers pay for someone to live in a house with one or two extra rooms that they don’t need? And why should people be allowed to under occupy at tax payers expense when there are other families who actually need a bigger property but cant get one because someone who doesn’t need it is occupying one?

There simply is no argument against this change, there may be examples where exceptions need to be made but the principle itself is sound.

There's is simply no argument against this change? 660000 people beg to differ! There are many reasons that the bedroom tax is wrong and has nothing to do with freeing up properties. People on benefits cannot move they have no money to finance a move. There are not enough smaller properties to move to, what the government deems to be a spare room is often nothing of the sort. In private rent you only go for a property you can afford and indeed need so this would not be an issue.The issue here is sitting tenants who haven been in their HOMES for years are suddenly being targetted and thats unfair. The difference is also the social housing tenancy is secure and for life which is never the case in private renting. This has been changed for new tenants now but many are still in secure tenancies. This will save not money in the long run and will very likely bankrupt the Housing suppliers instead! The ONLY solution to this problem is encouraging people to move in an orderly fashion and build more social housing.

Crazyfrog, I appreciate a home is more than just somewhere where someone eats and sleeps. But the welfare state, of which social housing is a part, is not there to pay for peoples sentimental memories. Your point totally ignores the fact that we are talking about people being supported through tax payers money. No one has the right to expect the tax payer to pay for something that isnt a necessity.

The level of support provided by the state should and indeed must change if the level of support actually needed reduces. If someone was given a three bed property because they had two children then if those children no longer live in that property the state should not fund those un used rooms.

The only issue I have is not that these changes are happening but that they didn’t happen well before now and that the welfare state has been allowed to morph over the years into something where people expect it to support their life style choices instead of supporting their needs. For me even more can and needs to be done to address other issues with the welfare state but this is a step in the right direction.

As to immigrants etc, I think you'll find it was Labour and not this current government that opened the flood gates and Labour where happy to admit it and indeed were quite proud of their policy.

HN12, but what is this bedroom tax you are talking about? I've not heard about the government introducing any tax on bedrooms at all, please enlighten us all about this tax.

Oh, I see. You appear to be referring to the change in the benefit system which isnt a tax at all, you appear to be mistaken. You see its not a tax at all. Or are you going down the popularist propagandist scare mongering route to try and gain some sort of sensationalist effect for your position?

You do appear however to have made the real mistake of mixing up the principle behind the change in the benefit system with the practicalities of people adjusting to it.

If there is a shortage of smaller accommodation for people to move to that does not make the principle behind the change in the benefit system wrong. Yes it may take time for some to find smaller accommodation to move to if that is what they choose to do but the government have already made financial provisions so that local authorities can support those in that situation. Just as they have made changes to the regulations to acknowledge the fact that sometimes there is a valid need for a tenant to have a spare room.

The reality remains however that for the majority of the 660,000 affected they are living in properties with more bedrooms than they need and that should not be paid for by the tax payer.

You also seem to think that people in social housing should be sheltered from the realities of life. No one is suggesting as far as I know taking away these tenants security of tenure. If they don’t want to move they don’t have to. Of course they will have to pay themselves for the extra rooms that they have, but then that leaves them facing the same decisions many tax payers have to face at some point (you know, the tax payer whose taxes are paying for the social housing tenants in questions rent etc) namely we can no longer afford the property we are in at this stage of our lives and therefore have to look for somewhere more appropriate and affordable to move to.

Please explain why tax payers have to face decisions about the affordability and suitability of their housing whilst their taxes contribute towards allowing others not be immune from those very same decisions. That is basically what you are saying should happen by being against this change in housing benefit regulations.

The issue here is not people being unfairly targetted. The issue is that, as I pointed out in my last post, people have forgotten or mis understood what the welfare state is for. I will re iterate, it is there to support peoples needs not their wants. With these changes tenants are still having their needs met, but the tax payer is no longer having to pay for the luxury of catering for someone elses unecessary wants.

garston tony wrote:
Crazyfrog, I appreciate a home is more than just somewhere where someone eats and sleeps. But the welfare state, of which social housing is a part, is not there to pay for peoples sentimental memories. Your point totally ignores the fact that we are talking about people being supported through tax payers money. No one has the right to expect the tax payer to pay for something that isnt a necessity.

The level of support provided by the state should and indeed must change if the level of support actually needed reduces. If someone was given a three bed property because they had two children then if those children no longer live in that property the state should not fund those un used rooms.

The only issue I have is not that these changes are happening but that they didn’t happen well before now and that the welfare state has been allowed to morph over the years into something where people expect it to support their life style choices instead of supporting their needs. For me even more can and needs to be done to address other issues with the welfare state but this is a step in the right direction.

As to immigrants etc, I think you'll find it was Labour and not this current government that opened the flood gates and Labour where happy to admit it and indeed were quite proud of their policy.

well if we go with your theory Tony surely the first port of call would be an elderly couple i have heard of, their children have all grown up and have left the family home, they have more spare bedrooms than they know exist now all their children have a taxpayer subsidised property as well, the house is in fact not a house its a palace its called buckingham palace and the couple are of course the queen and prince philip.
Agreed Labour did more damage and probably would do more damage to this country than any party i know of.

Shakes his head at the Brainwashed Tory blogger garston tony!

I think all governments including the Labour and the present day government failed in the area.

Watford has other problems as a borough which is only 8 miles by 2 miles has finite space. It is the most densely populated borough in the country outside London.

I believe a more radical approach, probably at a county wide approach is needed. We need to stop the nimbies from blocking building of areas in the rest of Hertfordshire.

Councils, yes Councils should build homes and all the various supporting things such as schools, roads, shops, doctors surgeries etc. National government should grant money. The investment, even through borrowing, will have a return and almost certainly boost the private sector too, due to the supply chain needed.

Alas, todays politicians are not bold enough to do this.

Over the years, Watford has been building 'homes' to house on those on the waitnig list now called the housing register. But the more that is built, the longer the list seems to grow and this gap between demand and supply never seems to close.

Does it mean that because of our building programme, we are a magnet especially as the higher the need, the greater the chance of being housed. How many more homes / people can we squash into our tiny town which already has problems eg shortage of school places or areas to build a school?

Cazyfrog, you're not going to win any argument making flippant comments about totally un related matters.

HN12, I think for myself thank you. However your comments read like something out of the Labour manual on how to scare monger against the benefit changes.

Sally, I totally agree that more housing is needed. However the principle that people in receipt of state support should not get more than they actually need still applies. If there is no need for an extra bedroom, why should the tax payer fund it?

I would also add, if your situation improves ie you get a job and can afford to rent/buy privately then you no longer qualify for social housing. I believe that that is a change that is already going to be introduced in the future.

There is a flip side to this as well, why should someone/a couple with one child who has been provided with a two be property on the basis they have one child and who are in receipt of benefits including housing benefit be entitled to make the lifestyle decision to have a second child and expect, often demand to be moved to a bigger property?

As far as I'm concerned if you approach the state for assistance and you are deemed in need of assistance then the need you have at that point should be all the state caters for (unless something occurs which is out of your control) so if you have no children or one child and decide to have more then that is at your own expense.

The reasoning behind this is many tax payers cant afford to have more children yet their taxes currently pays towards allowing people, some of whom have never worked a day in their lives, to have as many children as they want knowing under the current system that the state ie tax payers will pick up the tab.

Where is the fairness in that please?