Housing benefit is a lifeline not a lifestyle

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jul/09/housing-benefit-is-a-lifeline-not-a-lifestyle

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Even with the promise to exempt vulnerable groups from cuts to young people’s housing benefit, the government’s plans still run a huge risk of increasing homelessness among 18- to 21-year-olds. Removing young people’s automatic ability to claim housing benefit will at best create a hit-and-miss system. There is a huge danger that a discretionary system will lead to thousands of young people who have no family home to return to slipping through the safety net. Independent research, commissioned by Centrepoint, makes clear that the measure will fail to save the taxpayer any money as young people facing homelessness will be forced to turn to already cash-strapped local councils for help instead. For the vast majority of young people, housing benefit is a lifeline not a lifestyle. They want to work and to move off benefits, but to do so they need the stable foundation that housing benefit temporarily provides.Paul NobletCentrepoint

• As one of those strange people who doesn’t think buying property is a human right or a human necessity, I have two questions for George Osborne about his plans to charge so-called wealthy tenants market rents. 1) Exactly what subsidy do I receive for living in a damp, polluted 75-year-old ex-GLC flat? 2) Given that, according to Zoopla, the market rent for my flat is £500pw rather than the £120pw I currently pay, does he seriously think I and my neighbours are so wealthy we can afford to pay an additional £20,000 a year, money that will just go to subsidising those already heavily subsidised right-to-buy-to-rent absentee landlords who plague our community with their unrepaired, overcrowded properties and who are instrumental in driving up local rents to those unaffordable ridiculous heights?

Osborne has decided that a London household earning over £40,000 is wealthy – two people on average earnings of £26,000? A single mum on £20,000 with two grown-up children earning £15,000 each? Why work if your rent is higher than your earnings? The OBR reports that Osborne’s other headline grabber in respect of social housing, lowering rents by 1% a year, will result in 14,000 fewer “affordable” homes being built. It doesn’t mention that it will also reduce the housing benefit bill for social tenants, but do nothing to change the exorbitant sums paid to private landlords.Joan TwelvesLondon

• The summer budget saw the chancellor announce that social housing rents are to fall by 1% a year. He also announced higher earners are to pay rent on social housing at the market rate. The later raises many issues; housing providers currently have no legal rights to monitor income for their tenants, so it is unclear how this will be actioned. Regrettably, the announcement goes against the idea of communities and risks splitting up the people within them to potentially create a social divide. It also leaves uncertainty around whether there will be a single threshold or several, thus making it understandable that some may see this as a disincentive to take a pay rise or a better job, if the increase is less than the increase in rent. It will be interesting to see whether these omissions are answered and, if so, whether theses answers are satisfactory; clarity is essential.John RussellPartner, Blake Morgan LLP