Don't Cap My Benefits...

[ferlew]

How do you feel about this programme, BBC1, now.

[emmie]

you work all your life, pay your taxes, NI contributions, then bam you get old, or sick, or both, if you were not able to pay into a private scheme, why should you be held up as some useless old codger bludging off the state, a state pension isn't an enormous amount of money, and whilst we are there, even private pension scheme have been raided, so what you may have been paying into for a very long time, may not be what you get in return,
i am sure Sqad can tell you that.
if some don't bother ever getting a job, keep churning out more and more babies then why should they expect like the bloke with seven kids, everything on a plate. The programme report said he/they received 800 quid a week in benefits, that is on top of his own 150 quid working.

[masma]

I could've cried... The High Wycombe flat they put the family with 7 children in was just along the road from our beautiful home that we had to down size from 9 years ago.

[emmie]

What is madness is that he is having to drive in to his job, why doesn't he get one nearer to where he now lives. Surely that would make more sense.
because it must be costing a small fortune in petrol to get back and forward to Brent

[sandyRoe]

When they talked about the £800 a week how much of that went in rent?

[Mamyalynne]

Some of those local authority rents were astronomical in my view - soon the Capital will be devoid of anyone able to do low paid jobs because of those rents.

[emmie]

no idea, but the coalition has now capped what can be paid in housing benefit, which is why they are turfing people out, because private landlords aren't getting the returns they were from local authorities, so they will only rent to those who can afford their extortionate rates. You would have no chance if the rent is 500 quid a week, one of the biggest problems of living in the capital, massive rents, buying is almost a no no.

[emmie]

that has been my point before and all along, that there will only be uber wealthy in the capital - and who then will clean their homes, take care of their children, clean the public lavs, sweep the streets, if they have to commute in, costing all the more money. Boris said before that he didn't want to see a form of social cleansing, well it's happening, not because those people aren't wanted, they are, but because the rental sector is out of control

[sandyRoe]

When someone who was on housing benefit is evicted can a landlord realistically expect to get the rent he wants from a replacement working tenant?

[emmie]

they are fighting each other to get properties, many are coming from abroad, to study, to work and can afford to pay. a neighbour rents out his place to Chinese students, i am pretty certain he can get a grand a week easy for the pleasure and probably more. I have seen some ex council stock two bed flat selling for a million.

[emmie]

you can get cheaper, but it generally means either sharing if you are a singleton, or moving on to the fringes, in some charming place like Homerton,

[DrFilth]

sandyRoe it will end up like the old days when a family lived in one room

[emmie]

DF, no it won't, but i do wonder at the councils, ours included who are intent on destroying their social housing stock, by selling them off to developers, this is not like the Right to Buy scheme. I see the ads in our local papers, and see those properties going for a relative song, those homes which are not remotely replaceable