Mum forced to pay Bedroom Tax on sensory room for severely disabled daughter

Irn Bru wrote:

sphinx wrote:

Ms Smith would not be eligible for housing benefit as a single person working on a wage sufficient to pay £80 but insufficient to pay £120.

Why is it unreasonable for a working person to have things an non working person does not?

Is it unreasonable for non coeliac to be able to eat wheat flour?  After all its not the coeliacs fault they are sensitive to gluten so maybe we better force everyone to stop eating wheat.

Or maybe we better put the unemployed in the most expensive homes and force the people working to live on the streets because after all its not the fault of the unemployed they have no money is it.

See, your making up the scenario to suit your argument by deciding how much Ms Smith will be paid in a few years time. Maybe she'll be on the dole and after all those years that she has worked and paid her rent she'll be kicked out of the home she has maintained and decorated for years because through no fault of her own she has lost her job.

Punish the unemployed then.

sphinx wrote:

Irn Bru wrote:

See, your making up the scenario to suit your argument by deciding how much Ms Smith will be paid in a few years time. Maybe she'll be on the dole and after all those years that she has worked and paid her rent she'll be kicked out of the home she has maintained and decorated for years because through no fault of her own she has lost her job.

Punish the unemployed then.

While I know that I am horrendous at explaining things you are just dodging the issue.

Ms Smith and Ms Jones got 3 bed houses several years ago because they had 2 children one of each sex.  Now the children have left home.  Ms Smith works now Ms Jones does not work now.  Due to the level of her working and benefits rules prior to the change in rules on housing benefits Ms Smith would have had no choice but to move to a smaller cheaper property while Ms Jones would have been able to remain with no cost to her.  Now the rules have changed both Ms Smith and Ms Jones are forced to look for smaller cheaper properties.  They are not being kicked out they just cannot afford it.

Of course you would much prefer it that Ms Smith was given extra money so she could stay in the 3 bed house also but guess what society can no longer afford that.

Consistently through out this the only person whose viewpoint you look from is that of Ms Jones.  You dont look from Ms Smiths.  You dont look from the families with 3 children stuck in 2 bed flats.  You are not interested in the rights of those that are employed and working only in the rights of those who do not work - whether they are at fault or not.

sphinx wrote:

Irn Bru wrote:

See, your making up the scenario to suit your argument by deciding how much Ms Smith will be paid in a few years time. Maybe she'll be on the dole and after all those years that she has worked and paid her rent she'll be kicked out of the home she has maintained and decorated for years because through no fault of her own she has lost her job.

Punish the unemployed then.

While I know that I am horrendous at explaining things you are just dodging the issue.

Ms Smith and Ms Jones got 3 bed houses several years ago because they had 2 children one of each sex.  Now the children have left home.  Ms Smith works now Ms Jones does not work now.  Due to the level of her working and benefits rules prior to the change in rules on housing benefits Ms Smith would have had no choice but to move to a smaller cheaper property while Ms Jones would have been able to remain with no cost to her.  Now the rules have changed both Ms Smith and Ms Jones are forced to look for smaller cheaper properties.  They are not being kicked out they just cannot afford it.

Of course you would much prefer it that Ms Smith was given extra money so she could stay in the 3 bed house also but guess what society can no longer afford that.


Consistently through out this the only person whose viewpoint you look from is that of Ms Jones.  You dont look from Ms Smiths.  You dont look from the families with 3 children stuck in 2 bed flats.  You are not interested in the rights of those that are employed and working only in the rights of those who do not work - whether they are at fault or not.

Sassy wrote:I don't know what point you think you are making.   That might be true of your street.   Nationwide people are desperate to move into smaller houses because of the bedroom tax and there are not enough smaller houses for them to move into.

Sassy wrote:What they should be doing is building smaller properties and giving grants to people who are in larger properties and want to move, then, if there is an inbalance, build larger properties.   But that wouldn't make people miserable and is too logical for this lot.

Sassy wrote:Perhaps you will trust Government figures, you don't have to take my word, I go by facts:



The Government’s justification for its controversial “bedroom tax” has been debunked by new figures showing that up to 96 per cent of those affected have, in effect, nowhere to move.

The figures published today in The Independent expose the false argument behind ministerial attempts to spin the move as ending the  “spare-room subsidy”, and confirm campaigners’ claims that it merely penalises poor people.

The policy means that tenants have their housing benefit reduced by 14 per cent if they have one spare bedroom, and 25 per cent if they have two or more spare bedrooms.

Yet more than 19 out of 20 families  hit by the bedroom tax are trapped in their larger homes because there is nowhere smaller within the local social housing stock to take them. This is shown by figures provided by councils in response to Freedom of Information requests by the Labour Party.

For the 38 councils that provided full data, 99,079 families are expected to be affected by the bedroom tax, but only 3,803 one and two-bedroom social housing properties are available – just 3.8 per cent of the homes required to rehouse the families who are hit.

Another 26 councils who responded said they expected a total of 45,669 families to be affected, but were unable to say how many smaller properties were available in their area.

Liam Byrne, the shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, said: “The big lie behind this Government’s spiteful bedroom tax is now plain for all to see. Ministers like to claim it’s not a tax, but the truth is more than 96 per cent of those hit have nowhere to move to.

“This hated tax is trapping thousands of families, forcing vulnerable people to food banks and loan sharks, and there is now a serious danger it could end up costing Britain more than it saves as tenants are forced to go homeless or move into the expensive private rented sector. David Cameron’s bedroom tax is the worst possible combination of cruelty and incompetence. He should drop it now.”

The situation is affecting local authorities around the country. In Birmingham, 13,557 households are affected by the bedroom tax, but just 368 one and two-bedroom properties are currently unoccupied. In Cornwall, meanwhile, there are just 65 one and two-bedroom homes and more than 3,300 people eligible to be charged for under-occupancy.

Steve Turner, executive director for policy at Unite, said: “These figures show beyond any doubt that Iain Duncan Smith has been misleading the public. He tried to spin the bedroom tax as a way of managing housing stock, but in fact it is a cruel and callous attack on some of the most vulnerable people in our communities.”

“The evidence now overwhelmingly shows that the Government has made a grave mistake with this policy. They must abandon it now before more lives are destroyed.”

In Sefton, Merseyside, more than 3,600 people were competing for 18 available one and two-bedroom properties at the time of the FOI. Kevin Appleton, income manager at One Vision Housing, which manages Sefton Council’s waiting list, said that the situation was now even more stark.

“As of today we’ve got 8,360 people on the waiting list. Of these, 4,859 want one-bedroom homes and on this week’s adverts we had just six available. It’s making life very hard for people whose lives were hard anyway. The demand for three-bed properties has fallen through the floor,” he said.

Louise Harding, head of tenant services at the Coast and Country Housing association in Redcar, said in one of their worst-hit areas there were 53 three-bedroom properties empty and queues of people desperate to downsize. “It’s appalling,” she said. “We’ve got 1,100 people wanting to downsize to a one-bedroom property and on average we only have around 30 available every year. At this rate it will take 37 years for all those people to get one-bedroom homes. The iniquity of it is shocking; this about money-making.”

More than half of those affected by the policy have a disability – and campaigners say they will appeal against last week’s High Court decision that it did not discriminate against disabled people, who often need an extra room in which to sleep alone.

The Government announced last Tuesday that it would increase the emergency funds available for those affected by increased housing costs by £35m. But the handouts, known as discretionary housing payments, are a fraction of the millions needed to cover people’s shortfall in rent.

The chief executive of Citizens Advice, Gillian Guy, said: “Discretionary housing payments are worth only a small fraction of the total cut in housing benefit and are often only temporary, meaning problems can go unresolved.”

She added: “This is an upside-down approach to policy-making which doesn’t get to the root cause of why housing benefit costs have increased. We have a chronic shortage of affordable housing in the UK with over 1.8 million households on waiting lists.  As long as this dire lack of housing options exists then the Government can’t reasonably tell people they have a choice about downsizing to a smaller home.”

Chris Goulden, head of poverty at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said: “It is very difficult to see how this policy can work without causing severe hardship, particularly as many of those affected are disabled people. The housing benefit bill could also rise if more people move into the private rented sector because of a shortage of one or two-bedroom properties in social housing.”

A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said: “This ignores the fact that people may move to housing in the private sector and not all tenants will have to downsize because they could make up any shortfall through getting a job or increasing their working hours. These reforms will save the taxpayer £1bn over the next two years and help to ensure a better use of our housing stock when in England alone there are nearly two million households on the social housing waiting list, and over a quarter of a million tenants are living in overcrowded homes.”

While the DWP argues that social housing tenants who want to downsize could instead spend their housing benefit on private accommodation, there is already a major shortage of small, cheap private accommodation.

It would also defeat the cost-cutting aim of the whole policy, since the housing benefit payable for a private one-bedroom place is often more than for a two-bedroom council house. Saving enough for the deposit needed for private housing is a further issue – and a near-impossibility for those already struggling with rent arrears because of the bedroom tax.

Spotlight: Trapped by the tax

Since the introduction of the bedroom tax, thousands of families in the Cotswolds have been trapped in larger properties that they are penalised for by the new charge.

In Wiltshire, there were no unoccupied one- and two-bedroom properties at all, for 2,953 affected households, though 48 were advertised as being available shortly. The situation is similar in Gloucestershire, which had just three suitable properties for 540 people.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/big-lie-behind-the-bedroom-tax-families-trapped-with-nowhere-to-move-face-penalty-for-having-spare-room-8745597.html

sphinx wrote:

Sassy wrote:Perhaps you will trust Government figures, you don't have to take my word, I go by facts:



The Government’s justification for its controversial “bedroom tax” has been debunked by new figures showing that up to 96 per cent of those affected have, in effect, nowhere to move.

The figures published today in The Independent expose the false argument behind ministerial attempts to spin the move as ending the  “spare-room subsidy”, and confirm campaigners’ claims that it merely penalises poor people.

The policy means that tenants have their housing benefit reduced by 14 per cent if they have one spare bedroom, and 25 per cent if they have two or more spare bedrooms.

Yet more than 19 out of 20 families  hit by the bedroom tax are trapped in their larger homes because there is nowhere smaller within the local social housing stock to take them. This is shown by figures provided by councils in response to Freedom of Information requests by the Labour Party.

For the 38 councils that provided full data, 99,079 families are expected to be affected by the bedroom tax, but only 3,803 one and two-bedroom social housing properties are available – just 3.8 per cent of the homes required to rehouse the families who are hit.

Another 26 councils who responded said they expected a total of 45,669 families to be affected, but were unable to say how many smaller properties were available in their area.

Liam Byrne, the shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, said: “The big lie behind this Government’s spiteful bedroom tax is now plain for all to see. Ministers like to claim it’s not a tax, but the truth is more than 96 per cent of those hit have nowhere to move to.

“This hated tax is trapping thousands of families, forcing vulnerable people to food banks and loan sharks, and there is now a serious danger it could end up costing Britain more than it saves as tenants are forced to go homeless or move into the expensive private rented sector. David Cameron’s bedroom tax is the worst possible combination of cruelty and incompetence. He should drop it now.”

The situation is affecting local authorities around the country. In Birmingham, 13,557 households are affected by the bedroom tax, but just 368 one and two-bedroom properties are currently unoccupied. In Cornwall, meanwhile, there are just 65 one and two-bedroom homes and more than 3,300 people eligible to be charged for under-occupancy.

Steve Turner, executive director for policy at Unite, said: “These figures show beyond any doubt that Iain Duncan Smith has been misleading the public. He tried to spin the bedroom tax as a way of managing housing stock, but in fact it is a cruel and callous attack on some of the most vulnerable people in our communities.”

“The evidence now overwhelmingly shows that the Government has made a grave mistake with this policy. They must abandon it now before more lives are destroyed.”

In Sefton, Merseyside, more than 3,600 people were competing for 18 available one and two-bedroom properties at the time of the FOI. Kevin Appleton, income manager at One Vision Housing, which manages Sefton Council’s waiting list, said that the situation was now even more stark.

“As of today we’ve got 8,360 people on the waiting list. Of these, 4,859 want one-bedroom homes and on this week’s adverts we had just six available. It’s making life very hard for people whose lives were hard anyway. The demand for three-bed properties has fallen through the floor,” he said.

Louise Harding, head of tenant services at the Coast and Country Housing association in Redcar, said in one of their worst-hit areas there were 53 three-bedroom properties empty and queues of people desperate to downsize. “It’s appalling,” she said. “We’ve got 1,100 people wanting to downsize to a one-bedroom property and on average we only have around 30 available every year. At this rate it will take 37 years for all those people to get one-bedroom homes. The iniquity of it is shocking; this about money-making.”

More than half of those affected by the policy have a disability – and campaigners say they will appeal against last week’s High Court decision that it did not discriminate against disabled people, who often need an extra room in which to sleep alone.

The Government announced last Tuesday that it would increase the emergency funds available for those affected by increased housing costs by £35m. But the handouts, known as discretionary housing payments, are a fraction of the millions needed to cover people’s shortfall in rent.

The chief executive of Citizens Advice, Gillian Guy, said: “Discretionary housing payments are worth only a small fraction of the total cut in housing benefit and are often only temporary, meaning problems can go unresolved.”

She added: “This is an upside-down approach to policy-making which doesn’t get to the root cause of why housing benefit costs have increased. We have a chronic shortage of affordable housing in the UK with over 1.8 million households on waiting lists.  As long as this dire lack of housing options exists then the Government can’t reasonably tell people they have a choice about downsizing to a smaller home.”

Chris Goulden, head of poverty at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said: “It is very difficult to see how this policy can work without causing severe hardship, particularly as many of those affected are disabled people. The housing benefit bill could also rise if more people move into the private rented sector because of a shortage of one or two-bedroom properties in social housing.”

A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said: “This ignores the fact that people may move to housing in the private sector and not all tenants will have to downsize because they could make up any shortfall through getting a job or increasing their working hours. These reforms will save the taxpayer £1bn over the next two years and help to ensure a better use of our housing stock when in England alone there are nearly two million households on the social housing waiting list, and over a quarter of a million tenants are living in overcrowded homes.”

While the DWP argues that social housing tenants who want to downsize could instead spend their housing benefit on private accommodation, there is already a major shortage of small, cheap private accommodation.

It would also defeat the cost-cutting aim of the whole policy, since the housing benefit payable for a private one-bedroom place is often more than for a two-bedroom council house. Saving enough for the deposit needed for private housing is a further issue – and a near-impossibility for those already struggling with rent arrears because of the bedroom tax.

Spotlight: Trapped by the tax

Since the introduction of the bedroom tax, thousands of families in the Cotswolds have been trapped in larger properties that they are penalised for by the new charge.

In Wiltshire, there were no unoccupied one- and two-bedroom properties at all, for 2,953 affected households, though 48 were advertised as being available shortly. The situation is similar in Gloucestershire, which had just three suitable properties for 540 people.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/big-lie-behind-the-bedroom-tax-families-trapped-with-nowhere-to-move-face-penalty-for-having-spare-room-8745597.html

That is all about available and unoccupied properties which there were never many of in the first place.  I was always under the impression that people were supposed to do mutual exchanges  not move into available properties.  So in this street you have an overcrowded 2 bed and in that street an under occupied 3 bed so the 2 swap and bobs your uncle you have 2 correctly occupied properties.

sphinx wrote:So what because it is a minor part it should not be subjected to reasonable controls?

grumpy old git wrote:And theres shady calling the left cowards..... :/pwn://: 

sphinx wrote:So what because it is a minor part it should not be subjected to reasonable controls?

Sassy wrote:In Bristol there will be 4,714 households affect
ed; 3,639 of which who rent from the
Council and 1,075 from Registered Providers.
Of the 4,714 known to be affected; 3,841 are
under occupying by 1 bedroom room, and
873 are under occupying by 2+ bedrooms.
The average loss of benefit for
claimants has been calculated as;
•
£11.00 per week for Bristol City Council
tenants and £16.64 per week for those
renting from Housing Associations
under occupying by 1 bed, and
•
£21.00 per week for Bristol City Council
tenants and £29.27 per week for those
renting from Housing Associat
ions under occupying by 2+ bed

https://www.bristol.gov.uk/committee/2013/sc/sc9/0412_11.pdf




Freeing up homes for overcrowded households

An initiative aimed at encouraging tenants living in social housing which is now too large for their needs to move to smaller homes is helping a growing number of overcrowded households move into more suitable, bigger properties.

In all, 62 households in social housing in Bristol ‘downsized’ from January 3 to June 3 this year, new council figures reveal.

However, there were 49 ‘severely overcrowded households’ on the housing register as of July 3, and 524 houses categorised as ‘under-occupied’.

http://www.bristol.gov.uk/page/our-city-news/2012-09/freeing-homes-overcrowded-households

So 4,714 are in homes too big, but on 524 are overcrowded.

Sassy wrote:In Bristol there will be 4,714 households affect
ed; 3,639 of which who rent from the
Council and 1,075 from Registered Providers.
Of the 4,714 known to be affected; 3,841 are
under occupying by 1 bedroom room, and
873 are under occupying by 2+ bedrooms.
The average loss of benefit for
claimants has been calculated as;
•
£11.00 per week for Bristol City Council
tenants and £16.64 per week for those
renting from Housing Associations
under occupying by 1 bed, and
•
£21.00 per week for Bristol City Council
tenants and £29.27 per week for those
renting from Housing Associat
ions under occupying by 2+ bed

https://www.bristol.gov.uk/committee/2013/sc/sc9/0412_11.pdf




Freeing up homes for overcrowded households

An initiative aimed at encouraging tenants living in social housing which is now too large for their needs to move to smaller homes is helping a growing number of overcrowded households move into more suitable, bigger properties.

In all, 62 households in social housing in Bristol ‘downsized’ from January 3 to June 3 this year, new council figures reveal.

However, there were 49 ‘severely overcrowded households’ on the housing register as of July 3, and 524 houses categorised as ‘under-occupied’.

http://www.bristol.gov.uk/page/our-city-news/2012-09/freeing-homes-overcrowded-households


 

Huh?  You are mixing your figures it says that on the register there are 524 under occupied and 49 severely overcrowded - it does not say how many are ordinarily overcrowded.

The total numbers quoted in the first figures are totals for the whole housing stock not broken down by who are in receipt of benefits and so are affected.  Remember those people working and paying their own rent are not affected  - their rent does not change.

Read it again.

grumpy old git wrote:do i hear the sqwaking of chickens??? cluck cluck cluck.....

Sassy wrote:

sphinx wrote:

Actually, when I read it again, its even worse:

However, there were 49 ‘severely overcrowded households’ on the housing register as of July 3, and 524 houses categorised as ‘under-occupied’.

49 overcrowded, 524 under-occupied for the City.

Not the picture you painted.

No it says 49 severely overcrowded - not how many are just overcrowded.

It does not help that it is using different descriptors for overcrowding and under occupying. It tells us about under occupied by 1 room or 2 room but only about severely overcrowded. Does that mean families needing one extra room or 2 rooms or perhaps more?

I am afraid that makes me think lies damn lies and statistics. So in order to get an accurate picture we need to know how many families are 1 bedroom short, how many are 2 bedrooms short, how many are more. Of course it does not matter whether these families are or are not on benefits. Then we need to know how many people who are on housing benefits are under occupied by one room, how many by 2 how many by more. Then we get an accurate picture.

sphinx wrote:

Sassy wrote:

No it says 49 severely overcrowded - not how many are just overcrowded.

It does not help that it is using different descriptors for overcrowding and under occupying.  It tells us about under occupied by 1 room or 2 room but only about severely overcrowded.  Does that mean families needing one extra room or 2 rooms or perhaps more?  

I am afraid that makes me think lies damn lies and statistics.  So in order to get an accurate picture we need to know how many families are 1 bedroom short, how many are 2 bedrooms short, how many are more.  Of course it does not matter whether these families are or are not on benefits.  Then we need to know how many people who are on housing benefits are under occupied by one room, how many by 2 how many by more.  Then we get an accurate picture.

sphinx wrote:

Irn Bru wrote:

Oh I get it alright and there really is no need to write seven paragraphs of text trying to explain yourself.

You just keep making up scenarios to suit your argument and here you are doing it again by fast forwarding by several years toa situation where both women are now living alone.

And if Ms Smith is on a such a low income then she will be eligible to claim for HB herself. Just keep punishing the unemployed because they're unemployed by forcing them out whilst others who are working can stay because they have the ability to pay.

Sound Tory policy based on punishing those who have done nothing wrong other than being poor due to them being unemployed. Kick them out,,,,,,to where?

Ms Smith would not be eligible for housing benefit as a single person working on a wage sufficient to pay £80 but insufficient to pay £120.

Why is it unreasonable for a working person to have things an non working person does not?

Is it unreasonable for non coeliac to be able to eat wheat flour?  After all its not the coeliacs fault they are sensitive to gluten so maybe we better force everyone to stop eating wheat.

Or maybe we better put the unemployed in the most expensive homes and force the people working to live on the streets because after all its not the fault of the unemployed they have no money is it.