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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: English social cleansing
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Tulfes
Shipmate
# 18000
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Posted
Apologies if this has been discussed before.
I watched a Panorama programme last night on You Tube. I think it dated from 2013 (not sure).
It was about the benefits cap. It was a long and thoughtful programme filmed in Brent (London).
The benefits cap means that if a family are receiving in benefits more than the average working family income, their benefits are capped to the level of the average working income. However the cap doesn't apply if a single parent is working at least 16 hours a week or (in the case of a couple) someone is working at least 24 hours a week.
The problem portrayed in the film is that rents and housing benefit in London are so high that non working familiss are caught by the cap and face heart breaking situations of being shipped out of London to eg Birmingham (where rents are cheaper) with consequent problems of getting separated from extended family and friends and children losing their schools and friends etc.
Looks like London wants to rid itself of poorer families.
Just awful.
I detest English right wing social cleansing.
Posts: 175 | Registered: Feb 2014
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
It has been going on for years. Even back in the seventies the DHSS was moving families out of London to seaside towns that had seen better days and didn't have great communications with London. I can remember this in Bexhill and St Leonards but I'm sure it happened elsewhere too.
It was all entirely voluntary you understand.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
Before that, there were 'new towns' where the people who couldn't afford to live in London, to buy or to rent, would be 'encouraged' to go. Some say there are more East Enders in some towns in Essex than in London.
The idea that people should have a right to remain in a particular place and be provided with accommodation whatever their financial circumstances is recent.
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
Before that, there were 'new towns' where the people who couldn't afford to live in London, to buy or to rent, would be 'encouraged' to go. Some say there are more East Enders in some towns in Essex than in London.
The idea that people should have a right to remain in a particular place and be provided with accommodation whatever their financial circumstances is recent.
Actually, for many years it was reckoned reasonable for housing to be available where it was needed. The term "Homes fit for heroes to live in" goes back to the 1920's.
It is only since the social housing sell-off that things have changed. Your recent would be better rendered decent.
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
The selling off of council houses came much later than the new towns, which were preceded by 'garden cities'. Shipping people out of London by giving them little chance of housing where they were brought up, scattering communities and families, has been going on for a long time.
The homes fit for heroes were not necessarily where they wanted them to be.
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
The Garden Cities were not seen as being a way of cleansing anything or anyone; they were seen as being a way of giving people better homes in better surroundings, and often with better employment prospects too.
Welwyn Garden City was built near Hatfield, where there was aircraft production; Letchworth was near Luton with car production. On a smaller scale were the garden suburbs, such as at South Oxhey near Watford, which was deliberately built to take people bombed out of London and who worked in the print industry that relocated to the area at the same time.
In any case, why the uproar when it is people in publicly funded housing that are split up from their extended family but silence when it is owner-occupiers who are priced out of their locale by, for example, second home owners?
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Tulfes
Shipmate
# 18000
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Posted
The people in the programme weren't in public housing. They were tenants of greedy private landlords charging high rents because they can.
Posts: 175 | Registered: Feb 2014
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Tulfes:
The people in the programme weren't in public housing. They were tenants of greedy private landlords charging high rents because they can.
Coincidentally, they were then sent to different places where they again became tenants of greedy private landlords.
[ 13. March 2015, 09:19: Message edited by: Sioni Sais ]
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
Which would be because there is totally inadequate provision for public housing.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Which would be because there is totally inadequate provision for public housing.
Which to an extent has come about because housing stock was sold off (and eventually ended up in the hands of private landlords), and councils were not allowed to use the funds they got that way to build new housing stock.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
....In any case, why the uproar when it is people in publicly funded housing that are split up from their extended family but silence when it is owner-occupiers who are priced out of their locale by, for example, second home owners?
Or overseas investors, for that matter. Why isn't UKIP making a fuss about this, which really is damaaging our socciety? (Rhetorical question: I suspect I know the answer, which is that that would come just a bit too close to attacking free-market capitalism.)
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
Speaking as a private landlord can I say here and now that I'm not greedy - I don't up the rent every year and am the despair of my letting agents because I prefer to provide a family home than let out to groups of sharers who would end up paying more rent.
Last time I had a tenant on LHA even the local council told me I could get a lot more!
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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lowlands_boy
Shipmate
# 12497
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
....In any case, why the uproar when it is people in publicly funded housing that are split up from their extended family but silence when it is owner-occupiers who are priced out of their locale by, for example, second home owners?
Or overseas investors, for that matter. Why isn't UKIP making a fuss about this, which really is damaaging our socciety? (Rhetorical question: I suspect I know the answer, which is that that would come just a bit too close to attacking free-market capitalism.)
Ah well, if they are just overseas investors, chances are they are - well - overseas. So they aren't actually HERE, so that's fine, 'cos their funny looking kids aren't clogging up the local school and the NHS isn't paying for their teeth.
Investment is good.
Of course, the irony is that by driving up house prices they are probably forcing British people to go somewhere else and actually facilitating unskilled immigration as an unskilled immigrant prepared to live four to a room is living in their investment property.
But as you say, free market and all that....
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I thought I should update my signature line....
Posts: 836 | From: North West UK | Registered: Apr 2007
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
I think this is specifically a London problem. If the benefits cap is £500 per week, and you spend 30% of your money on rent, then you have about £650 per month. In Manchester that'll get you a 3-bedroom semi-detached house in a decent part of town.
London needs to sort itself out.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
I know Canada and the UK have let you down but you will always have Sweden.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
I think this is specifically a London problem. If the benefits cap is £500 per week, and you spend 30% of your money on rent, then you have about £650 per month. In Manchester that'll get you a 3-bedroom semi-detached house in a decent part of town.
London needs to sort itself out.
If you're hitting the benefits cap then you probably are in an unusual situation. (I.E living in London and disabled or multi-generations in one house).
The people on benefit in Manchester are on less. (It should also be mentioned that most of the recepients are also working-although what proportion ofHB goes to working/non-working I don't know).
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
Mostly, I think, to working households, although I don't have the figures to hand.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Tulfes:
The people in the programme weren't in public housing. They were tenants of greedy private landlords charging high rents because they can.
While many private landlords are indeed cunts, not (quite) all of them are.
Rents are high because property prices are high. Property prices are high because of high demand, and because the housing market is heavily subsidised by the benefits system. In a genuinely free housing market (from which may the good Lord deliver us) many landlords would have to choose between dropping their rents enormously or have empty properties earning nothing, and people who could not afford even those rents would freeze in the gutter. Instead the market is artificially inflated by millions of pounds of public money.
I'm not sure what the answer is. There are cogent arguments against rent controls, but the current situation is also far from ideal and may well be unsustainable. Taxing rented property isn't the answer - expenses imposed on landlords get passed on to tenants. I'm pretty sure the answer to London housing prices isn't either more benefits payments or a benefits cap, though.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
Mostly, I think, to working households, although I don't have the figures to hand.
I'd definitely heard that most people on housing benefit are in work (enough to believe it).
However I'd expect that (by dint of earning money) the working receivers, receive on average less than than the people who don't have that fortune. So suspect that the proportion of the Monies, will be different from the proportion of the People.
Posts: 1643 | Registered: May 2006
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
I'm not sure what the answer is. There are cogent arguments against rent controls
Allow councils to build houses again, and fund this properly, make it a stipulation that these new houses can't be sold off under RtB for a fixed period (or possibly indefinitely - of course, the spiv tendency in both parties will be tempted to undo this, and bribe people for votes by selling them on at huge discounts).
At the same time raise standards for rented housing via - say - German style regulations - this is needed anyway for other reasons, and it will shake out the ropier end of the market. As prices on some types of housing starts to fall slowly councils could even buy them back - selectively.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
Rents are high because property prices are high. Property prices are high because of high demand, and because the housing market is heavily subsidised by the benefits system....
...and very importantly because we have an economy built on the idea that residential property, whether you rent it out or live in it yourself, is an investment, so house price inflation is desirable and to be sought after (c.f. Help to Buy, which Osbo sees as a way of maintaining property values as much as anything else). We need to have a long-term aim of a corrective reduction of property prices, both relative to earnings and indeed, I'd say, absolutely.
BTW I believe the Germans- who have of course a rather different housing culture- are capping rents. Does anyone on the Ship have experience of how this is working?
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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HughWillRidmee
Shipmate
# 15614
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
It has been going on for years. Even back in the seventies the DHSS was moving families out of London to seaside towns that had seen better days and didn't have great communications with London. I can remember this in Bexhill and St Leonards but I'm sure it happened elsewhere too.
It was all entirely voluntary you understand.
As I recall - Minehead (not exactly ten minutes from London) gained blocks of flats built by the London County Council which it filled with elderly tenants. Since we elderly are often earning less and using more healthcare resources than younger folk the adverse financial effect on lightly populated, mainly rural, North Somerset was considerable.
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The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things.. but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them...
W. K. Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief" (1877)
Posts: 894 | From: Middle England | Registered: Apr 2010
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
As I recall - Minehead (not exactly ten minutes from London) gained blocks of flats built by the London County Council which it filled with elderly tenants.
I've been familiar with Minehead since the 1970s at least. Where are these alleged LCC blocks of flats of which you speak? (Or are you thinking of Butlins chalets?).
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
The primary problem, surely, is simply that you have one city where the demand/price is supremely high compared to anywhere else, such that any single setting you try to apply to this kind of system either won't work properly there, or won't work properly everywhere else.
The only way to solve it within the benefits system is to apply "average working income in London" to people in London. Which is a policy choice.
The other way to solve it is far harder, which is trying to make the difference between 'desirable' London and the rest of the country not so severe.
Large disparities between rich and poor areas is common enough. Canberra does still have richer and poorer areas, but it's noticeable that a conscious effort was made here to dampen this down by ensuring that almost every suburb had a mix of housing types. Public housing and cheaper housing on smaller blocks is, to some extent, scattered everywhere.
Plus this jurisdiction is essentially a city-state, so the possibility of moving people "somewhere else" doesn't really come up. You could only move them about 40km at most.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
Three comments on this debate.
1. Eliab, my understanding is that rent income is taxed, on much the same principles as all other taxation.
2. Chris Styles, the novel feature of your argument about bribing voters is that it has been used by both sides. Labour has accused the Tories of bribing voters by enabling them to buy their council houses. The Tories before that were accusing big Labour controlled local authorities of maintaining themselves in power through the fiefdoms they had with their large council estates, i.e. if you want your windows repaired, make sure you vote the right way.
Selling council houses, of course, did not cause the houses not to exist any more. Nor, under social assumptions as they were then, was it likely to affect the number of units available, since by and large once you had a local authority house, you were usually going to stay there until you died.
3. This problem is bad at the moment, but it's a myth to think it's new. I can remember people saying the same sort of thing as far back as around 1970. And that included expressions of horror at how much worse the situation was in the London area than anywhere else. And in those days you got tax relief on mortgage interest, yet even with that, people were saying how could young couples ever be able to buy.
[ 18. March 2015, 07:44: Message edited by: Enoch ]
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Which would be because there is totally inadequate provision for public housing.
Which to an extent has come about because housing stock was sold off (and eventually ended up in the hands of private landlords), and councils were not allowed to use the funds they got that way to build new housing stock.
A point which neither Ken Loach nor John Redwood even touched on in a debate on Channel 4 News last night - yet I believe that this is absolutely fundamental to the current debate.
Has anyone else on the Ship read this book which charts the decline (and even demonization) of public housing in Britain?
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Enoch: quote:
Selling council houses, of course, did not cause the houses not to exist any more. Nor, under social assumptions as they were then, was it likely to affect the number of units available, since by and large once you had a local authority house, you were usually going to stay there until you died.
Not so. Perhaps in some areas this might be true, but I was brought up in a council house until the age of 16, which is how long it took my parents to save up a deposit for buying a house. They applied to move to a house with a separate living and dining room so that my dad could study for his Open University degree. Unfortunately, by the time we got to the top of the waiting list he'd almost finished his degree - but we did eventually get one. And my grandparents moved from a three-bedroomed semi-detached house into a bungalow. Council housing came in different sizes, although most of it was three-bedroomed semi-detacheds or terraces, and you could ask to be rehoused if the house you were in wasn't suitable for some reason.
The village I live in now still has some council housing, and it's a mixture of two/three bedroom family homes and bungalows for OAPs. You can tell which ones are the council houses; they're the ones that have their roofs replaced all at once, instead of one at a time (or not at all) as you'd get in a street of privately owned houses.
[ 18. March 2015, 09:17: Message edited by: Jane R ]
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Selling council houses, of course, did not cause the houses not to exist any more. Nor, under social assumptions as they were then, was it likely to affect the number of units available,
This isn't entirely true of course - at least over the timescales that are now relevant. A fairly significant proportion of former council stock in London, is now owned by landlords, rather than owner occupiers. The effects of this is that over the long term the amount councils spend on housing benefit has risen mcuh faster than inflation, as savvy landlords have realised that councils have very little practical bargaining power (or indeed the will to do so).
Secondly, some areas have seen large scale re-development, often significantly changing the mix of housing available and its affordability. Heygate has been repeated on a smaller scale all across London.
quote:
This problem is bad at the moment, but it's a myth to think it's new. I can remember people saying the same sort of thing as far back as around 1970. And that included expressions of horror at how much worse the situation was in the London area than anywhere else. And in those days you got tax relief on mortgage interest, yet even with that, people were saying how could young couples ever be able to buy.
Yes, and to an extent this has been mitigated by people's willingness and ability to take on ever greater levels of debt, and lenders willingness to lend them ever increasing amounts. That is a process with a natural cap though - it can't continue upwards forever. The removal of structural inefficiencies in the mortgage market via the creation of secondary markets for debt, plus the effects of lower interest rates have already been accounted for.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Selling council houses, of course, did not cause the houses not to exist any more.
That's the bit I never understand about the argument that selling them off was a bad thing.
My road is all ex-council housing, with about 200 houses in total. When it was council-owned, about 200 families could live there. Now that it's privately-owned, about 200 families can live there. Net change = 0.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
My road is all ex-council housing, with about 200 houses in total. When it was council-owned, about 200 families could live there. Now that it's privately-owned, about 200 families can live there. Net change = 0.
Probably more. Private landlords are more likely to convert a house into flats/bedsits/studios/HMOs/whatever-else that allow them to fit more people in and charge more money.
Although they are also more likely to evict tenants they don't like, or who fall behind with rent, or who can't afford to pay when the market rental goes up. So they might have more void periods than the council would have done if it had kept the houses. But yes, overall, selling off homes to private ownership doesn't inherently reduce the amount of housing and may increase it. And it is (IMHO) a generally good and legitimate aspiration for people to own their own homes.
What is irrational about the benefits cap, is that the government is pouring millions into benefits with the effect of keeping property prices and rent levels artificially high, and then blaming the poor for taking the money in benefits that they need to pay those inflated rents. There ought to be a way for the state, as the single biggest player in the property game, to use its financial clout to bring the market down more efficiently than the blunt instrument of a benefits cap will.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
This is where I chip in to point out that there are about 750,000 empty homes in England. Regulations exist to bring these back into use but local authorities are involved, and while these run standing services well (education, rubbish collection, social services) they are pretty bad at projects and decision making.
btw, of the 200 homes in this road I wonder how many are owned outright by the people living in them?
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Clint Boggis
Shipmate
# 633
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Selling council houses, of course, did not cause the houses not to exist any more.
That's the bit I never understand about the argument that selling them off was a bad thing.
My road is all ex-council housing, with about 200 houses in total. When it was council-owned, about 200 families could live there. Now that it's privately-owned, about 200 families can live there. Net change = 0.
Some bloke a long time ago said we'd always have poor people among us. As a society with at least some level of social conscience we try to provide homes for poorer people who can't afford them.
Giving the current tenants the right to buy publicly-owned housing (stupidly, at vastly reduced prices) and then preventing the money being used to replace them reduced our capacity to house these poorer people in public housing, so now we hand over more cash to private landlords.
The decision was either incredibly stupid or just spiteful. Probably both.
What was wrong with the system was the long-term tenure and subsidy enjoyed by some tenents beyond their need. The rent subsidy should have been for a limited period with a regular reassessment. Right to buy should have been at the market price with the funds reinvested to maintain the level of housing stock needed.
Posts: 1505 | From: south coast | Registered: Jun 2001
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Tubbs
Miss Congeniality
# 440
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
The Garden Cities were not seen as being a way of cleansing anything or anyone; they were seen as being a way of giving people better homes in better surroundings, and often with better employment prospects too.
Welwyn Garden City was built near Hatfield, where there was aircraft production; Letchworth was near Luton with car production. On a smaller scale were the garden suburbs, such as at South Oxhey near Watford, which was deliberately built to take people bombed out of London and who worked in the print industry that relocated to the area at the same time.
In any case, why the uproar when it is people in publicly funded housing that are split up from their extended family but silence when it is owner-occupiers who are priced out of their locale by, for example, second home owners?
There's been mutterings about this in places like Cornwall. In parts of Wales the locals used to take more direct forms of action!
It really depends. Some of the estates built for soldiers returning from WW2 - the homes for heroes - were extended later as the local council needed somewhere to ... Well, for want of a better way of describing it, dump all the people with social problems that had to go somewhere! Some areas are reaping what the previous generations have sown.
Tubbs
[ 20. March 2015, 14:40: Message edited by: Tubbs ]
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"It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it up and remove all doubt" - Dennis Thatcher. My blog. Decide for yourself which I am
Posts: 12701 | From: Someplace strange | Registered: Jun 2001
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Tubbs
Miss Congeniality
# 440
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Selling council houses, of course, did not cause the houses not to exist any more.
That's the bit I never understand about the argument that selling them off was a bad thing.
My road is all ex-council housing, with about 200 houses in total. When it was council-owned, about 200 families could live there. Now that it's privately-owned, about 200 families can live there. Net change = 0.
I'll try. If social housing remains social, it can be re-allocated when people die / move / their circumstances change and they no longer need that kind of accomodation. There is always a stock available for those that need it.
If social housing is purchased, then it is taken out of the pool. The purchaser can do whatever they want with it, but it is no longer available for those in need. It means that more people are pushed into the private sector, which is less regulated and where rents are more expensive. Before, many of them would have ended up in social housing.
That's caused several problems that other posters have touched on - the increase in private rents; the increased cost of housing benefit; the difficulty in providing enough housing for those who truely need it; the lack of social housing has probably created tensions locally.
Tubbs
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"It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it up and remove all doubt" - Dennis Thatcher. My blog. Decide for yourself which I am
Posts: 12701 | From: Someplace strange | Registered: Jun 2001
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
I think- and this is is pretty heretical in the circles in which I used to move as a housing lecturer- that it was a great mistake to link relief of homelessness with access to (essentially lifetime, until very recently, and still in most of the UK) permanent council housing. It meant that council (and later housing association) housing got filled up with a lot of people who were for one reason or another- and this is not passing any personal judgement on them- a bit fucked up. If you go back sixty years and more, for many people moving into a council house or flat was a step up in the world, a source of pride, something to aspire to. We need to relieve homelessness but that should not necessarily lead you straight into permanent social housing and we should keep a portion of social housing, perhaps at higher rents, for people, perhaps ideally working people, who can't get decent private sector accommodation at a reasonable cost (an increasing nuymber nowadays) but who are not otherwise 'vulnerable' or 'in need'
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
Bravo, Albertus.
I've been spending some time working on a voluntary basis with a local housing association which is trying to teach some of its tenants what you and I would call basic life skills: simple cooking and housework, for want of a better description.
While most can see the point of the cooking and show some interest, the housework element passes many people by. And why do some people feel the need to reduce the walls of a house to bare plaster within 4 weeks (or less) of moving in?
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
Good on you, l'o: that kind of work is crucial. Mind you, I'm not a housework fanatic myself and I am willing to grant people a lot of leeway in that respect; and I do believe that having some kind of reassonably secure accommodation is a good basis for learning to manage a home, with support: there's a chap who comes to our church sometimes who has recently got a flat, with a support worker, after years of being on the streeets, and while I have no idea what the flat is like the change for the better in him is very visible. But the system falls down because too many people are given the really rather substantial responsibilities of maintaining a tenancy before they can really deal with them.
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
Over half of Americans with a high school education have moved from their home towns, three-quarters of College graduates have moved at least once.
I'm from West Virginia, not a hot bed of good jobs, the large majority of my high-school class now lives in other states. By the time we were in our twenties I lived in Ohio, one brother in California and one in Maryland, while my parents still lived in WV. The brother who worked for IBM management was expected to move every two years.
I have moved a total of 16 times and lived in four states and two countries. People in the US military typically move every five years. The idea that it's cruel social cleansing to make people move once for benefits seems over the top to me.
[ 21. March 2015, 20:58: Message edited by: Twilight ]
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
Over half of Americans with a high school education have moved from their home towns, three-quarters of College graduates have moved at least once.
I'm from West Virginia, not a hot bed of good jobs, the large majority of my high-school class now lives in other states. By the time we were in our twenties I lived in Ohio, one brother in California and one in Maryland, while my parents still lived in WV. The brother who worked for IBM management was expected to move every two years.
I have moved a total of 16 times and lived in four states and two countries. People in the US military typically move every five years. The idea that it's cruel social cleansing to make people move once for benefits seems over the top to me.
Just wait a minute, the examples you give are for people who move to a job or because of a job. Why on the other hand should anyone move from not having a job in one place to not having one in another to which they have no links whatsoever?
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Our own government simultaneously suggested that people had to move where the jobs are at the same time as proposing that people under 30 had to wait 6 months for unemployment benefits, kind of suggesting that they really ought to be at home with their families.
Not only did it strike most people as completely bizarre to not treat people in their 20s as grown independent adults (often with children of their own to look after), but it did seem contradictory to tell people they ought to move to a new job market while taking away the support they would need while finding an actual job.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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tomsk
Shipmate
# 15370
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Posted
The rise in rents is a side-effect of the government's economic strategy being sigificantly dependent on rising house prices.
Council housing generally improved people's lot and I think is the answer to housing problems, but the government (including labour) must have a policy of wanting reduced as much as possible over the long term.
I think the ideology is that housing benefit paid to the private sector encourages the economy and is better than tying up money in the state.
As Raptor Eye says, moving people out of London has been a long term thing. The working class population is already much decanted elsehwere, leaving the very rich and the very poor.
Posts: 372 | From: UK | Registered: Dec 2009
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
Over half of Americans with a high school education have moved from their home towns, three-quarters of College graduates have moved at least once.
I'm from West Virginia, not a hot bed of good jobs, the large majority of my high-school class now lives in other states. By the time we were in our twenties I lived in Ohio, one brother in California and one in Maryland, while my parents still lived in WV. The brother who worked for IBM management was expected to move every two years.
I have moved a total of 16 times and lived in four states and two countries. People in the US military typically move every five years. The idea that it's cruel social cleansing to make people move once for benefits seems over the top to me.
Just wait a minute, the examples you give are for people who move to a job or because of a job. Why on the other hand should anyone move from not having a job in one place to not having one in another to which they have no links whatsoever?
Because in both circumstances people are moving for economic reasons, either to get a job to pay for rent or to get benefits to pay for rent.
The OP says this: quote:
The problem portrayed in the film is that rents and housing benefit in London are so high that non working familiss are caught by the cap and face heart breaking situations of being shipped out of London to eg Birmingham (where rents are cheaper) with consequent problems of getting separated from extended family and friends and children losing their schools and friends etc.
I'm saying those problems of being separated from extended families and school friends happen to everyone. It seems like excessive hanky squeezing, to me, to call it a heart breaking if the people are on benefit and perfectly normal if they're not.
If they have looked for jobs, and found none, in London, then Birmingham might possibly carry more hope in that direction. As my West Virginia friends found, leaving extended family was sometimes just the cultural move needed to develop confidence and demonstrate possibilities that the parents had been fearful of. America is full of people who left home and family and crossed an ocean to find a better life style, maybe a train ride to Birmingham isn't that horrific.
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
But we're not talking about making people move where the jobs are, which might make some sense- we're talking about making them move where rents are cheaper, and very often rents are cheapest in areas which are least in demand because, among other things, there are few jobs there.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
But we're not talking about making people move where the jobs are, which might make some sense- we're talking about making them move where rents are cheaper, and very often rents are cheapest in areas which are least in demand because, among other things, there are few jobs there.
Which is *exactly* what has been the case in moving people out of London and into cheaper places elsewhere, as stated in the opening post on 12 March.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Clint Boggis
Shipmate
# 633
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
But we're not talking about making people move where the jobs are, which might make some sense- we're talking about making them move where rents are cheaper, and very often rents are cheapest in areas which are least in demand because, among other things, there are few jobs there.
Which is *exactly* what has been the case in moving people out of London and into cheaper places elsewhere, as stated in the opening post on 12 March.
Precisely. While 'social cleansing' (from the OP) is overstating it, it's certainly shifting people - not to help give them productive lives - but just to save a few quid. It may feel depressing, like everyone's given up hope that their lives will ever be a success.
L'Organist: "I'm saying those problems of being separated from extended families and school friends happen to everyone."
Well, yes. Successful, ambitious people choosing to move to remain on the ladder of personal advancement may see it as a price worth paying. People whose lives aren't a success will probably see having their chances of work reduced and their social network ripped apart as deeply depressing. Bear in mind the people you spoke of can afford to travel to see their family but those on benefits won't be able to.
[ 22. March 2015, 15:52: Message edited by: Clint Boggis ]
Posts: 1505 | From: south coast | Registered: Jun 2001
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Clint Boggis:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
But we're not talking about making people move where the jobs are, which might make some sense- we're talking about making them move where rents are cheaper, and very often rents are cheapest in areas which are least in demand because, among other things, there are few jobs there.
Which is *exactly* what has been the case in moving people out of London and into cheaper places elsewhere, as stated in the opening post on 12 March.
Precisely. While 'social cleansing' (from the OP) is overstating it, it's certainly shifting people - not to help give them productive lives - but just to save a few quid. It may feel depressing, like everyone's given up hope that their lives will ever be a success.
I suspect that it will not save that much money in the long run. Not only are people being moved away from their support networks (and free child-care provided by grandparents can be a vital part of that) but the grandparents are also being deprived of their support networks. Without families close enough to provide unpaid care, the council is going to have to pick up the tab sooner or later.
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 1877 | From: England | Registered: May 2003
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Tulfes
Shipmate
# 18000
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Posted
Exactly, Joanna P. The amount of stress being placed on the families being moved out of Brent to cheaper rental areas, solely to meet the Government's new benefit capping policy, was shown to be phenomenal. This will lead to family breakdown, health issues, possibly crime/anti social behaviour, educational problems and loss of inter generational support structures. All will be costly in monetary terms to the public purse, to say nothing if the human cost paid by those forcibly moved and those reliant on their support left behind.
Posts: 175 | Registered: Feb 2014
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
There will certainly be additional costs, to social services, housing and health but these are handled by local authorities, so central government can save money in the short term, which is all that seem to matter.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
posted by Clint Boggis quote:
L'Organist: "I'm saying those problems of being separated from extended families and school friends happen to everyone."
Well, yes. Successful, ambitious people choosing to move to remain on the ladder of personal advancement may see it as a price worth paying. People whose lives aren't a success will probably see having their chances of work reduced and their social network ripped apart as deeply depressing. Bear in mind the people you spoke of can afford to travel to see their family but those on benefits won't be able to.
1. The first paragraph - that is NOT a quote: you may think I implied it or said it but I didn't write those words.
2. I also didn't say it was about 'personal advancement' by 'successful, ambitious people': in fact I specifically said it also referred to people who are priced out of the market in the area where they grow up and have their personal networks (sometimes called friends and relatives).
People like my own children, in fact, who are extremely unlikely to be able to buy in the area where I live.
But we shall look at that as a family and, if necessary, we will all re-locate at the same time.
As for being able to afford to travel to see family: I've had family members move (sometimes for good, sometimes only temporarily) to Australia and the USA and it has been well beyond my means to travel to see them. Frankly, I think twice before going to see a cousin in Scotland.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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