Over 50,000 families shipped out of London boroughs in the past three years due to welfare cuts and soaring rents

More than 50,000 families have been silently shipped out of London boroughs in the past three years, an investigation by The Independent can reveal.

Leaked documents obtained by this newspaper expose the true scale of the “social cleansing” taking place across the capital as a result of welfare cuts and soaring rents. The figures show an unprecedented number of families who cannot afford to find homes in their local area being uprooted from their neighbourhoods and dumped further and further away from the capital, cut off from their relatives and support networks.

The spike coincides with the Coalition’s introduction of the benefit cap and “bedroom tax”, both of which have made it significantly harder for poor people to afford housing in London. In 2010, the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, vowed that the controversial welfare reforms would not lead to “Kosovo-style social cleansing”, pledging: “You are not going to see thousands of families evicted from the place where they have been living.”

But official figures – which the authorities have previously refused to publish – show the problem is much worse than campaigners feared. They show that councils are currently moving homeless mothers and children out of their boroughs at a rate of close to 500 families a week, with numbers continuing to rise.



The Independent has uncovered cases of depression, attempted suicide and the miscarriage of a child involving those forced to move many miles away by their councils.

Some 2,707 families have been moved out of Greater London over the last two years, the figures show, to locations including Manchester, Bradford, Hastings, Pembrokeshire, Dover and Plymouth.

In many cases, councils are not telling each other when they move families, leaving vulnerable adults and children without the support they need. At least 25 councils have received homeless families without being properly notified by the councils that sent the families. The shipping out of homeless families has, until now, been happening behind closed doors. The representative body for London’s 32 boroughs, London Councils, which collects data on out-of-borough placements, has never made the figures public.

But documents obtained by The Independent reveal the flow of families from inner to outer London – and out of the capital completely.

One leaked document, circulated in March, shows that in just three months last year, a record-breaking 5,437 families were moved out of borough – the highest number on record. Councils dumped 49,789 families out of borough between July 2011 and July 2014. Moves in the last eight months are likely to have pushed the total well over 50,000. As the figures refer to families, the number of children moved is likely to be in the hundreds of thousands.

The data maps out the movement of tens of thousands of homeless families from inner London to outer London, with east London receiving the most families. Faced with an influx of so many families from other parts of London, east London boroughs have been moving their homeless to Essex, Kent and beyond.

Between July and September last year there were 423 families sent out of Greater London, including 115 families sent to Essex, 96 families sent to Kent and 24 to Birmingham.

Councils are consistently not fulfilling their legal duty to properly notify councils when they send homeless families, the investigation found. Redbridge council received 336 families from other parts of London between July and September last year, yet said it had only received eight notifications between January and October 2014.

Luton council said it received four notifications in the same period, yet the data shows that 40 families were sent there from London in the six months between April and September 2014.

London has been hit hardest by the welfare cuts imposed by the Coalition Government, and the capital has also seen the biggest increase in rents across the country. The benefit cap limits the maximum benefit available to households at £500 per week. And the bedroom tax, which cuts payments to council tenants with spare rooms, has hit nearly 50,000 households in London.

Many of those hit by the cuts have accrued rent arrears and then been evicted, leaving them homeless. These families have then been sent many miles away by their councils.

Tom Copley, Labour member of the London Assembly and deputy chair of the housing committee, warned that London was being “hollowed out”. He said: “I’m appalled by these figures. This is social cleansing on an unprecedented scale. Boris Johnson pledged that we wouldn’t see thousands of families uprooted on his watch. Mixed communities are part of what makes London special. We don’t want to end up like Paris with all the rich people living in the centre and all the poorer people living around the edge.”

Campbell Robb, chief executive of Shelter, said: “It’s shocking to see in black and white the sheer volume of homeless families being uprooted and sent miles away from their local area. Imagine losing your home and then being forced to pack your bags and wave goodbye to schools, jobs, and everyone you know – this is the reality for thousands of families in London.

“It’s the housing shortage that has created this crisis, and the only way to escape it for good is for the next government to build the affordable homes we so desperately need.”

Javed Khan, chief executive of Barnardo’s, said: “The scale of this is alarming. We are calling on the next government to ensure that the benefits system is adequate to protect vulnerable families, not punish them.”

Labour’s shadow housing minister, Emma Reynolds, said: “It’s a tragedy that so many people are without a home or struggling to keep a roof over their head and, as if that wasn’t bad enough, they are then faced with being placed miles away from home.”

Responding to the figures, the Department for Work of Pensions said that few people affected by welfare reform have moved; when they have it is generally short distances. The department also said it had provided £500m to support vulnerable people through welfare reforms.

A London Councils spokesperson said: “Boroughs aim to keep households as near as possible to their home borough where reasonably practicable. However they are facing huge challenges in finding affordable temporary accommodation in the capital in the context of a very pressured property market and shortage of housing in London.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/over-50000-families-shipped-out-of-london-in-the-past-three-years-due-to-welfare-cuts-and-soaring-rents-10213854.html

Absolutely bloody disgusting.

and we are set to import howmant 100's thousands more "poor"

I despair

It's got nothing to do with the number of 'poor', it has to do with the number of 'rich' who have taken over London and upped the prices out of reach of ordinary people.

erm yes but......

thats 50,000 that need homes NOW..........

so another god alone knows how many?????????

They wouldn't need the homes if it wasn't for Tory policy.

People often have to move in order to find jobs or cheaper housing. There's no point living in London on benefits - it's cheaper elsewhere.

Well in that case, don't moan about people who move to other countries for jobs, after all, it's not worth staying where there aren't any. A lot of these families are WORKING and it is forcing them to give up their jobs!

risingsun wrote:Well in that case, don't moan about people who move to other countries for jobs, after all, it's not worth staying where there aren't any.  A lot of these families are WORKING and it is forcing them to give up their jobs!

They should have paid their rent then.

Are you that stupid or is it just an act? Their rents have risin so much because of the way London has become a city just for the rich, their rents have become impossible to pay, and that is for working families. Rents have risen astromically.

risingsun wrote:Are you that stupid or is it just an act?  Their rents have risin so much because of the way London has become a city just for the rich, their rents have become impossible to pay, and that is for working families.  Rents have risen astromically.

Well they were free to move somewhere else if they couldn't afford it. Honestly, some people need to have their hands held all their lives by the Government. All this shit about them being moved by someone else gets on my nerves. They'll get over it.

No, I'm not stupid - thanks for asking though.

perhaps we could send em to Brussels you know "the "poor" they so dearly want to help???

hmmmmmm

of course the socialistic party of stupidity AKA labour would solve this by having 90% of private landlords sell tgheir lettable proerty, thus removing it from the letting market

Oh and of course the theft of what THEY would term "unused" LAND...note land....NOT buildings whos confiscation I approve of under certain circumstances.....

a great solution that.....

darknessss wrote:perhaps we could send em to Brussels you know "the "poor" they so dearly want to help???

hmmmmmm

of course the socialistic party of stupidity   AKA labour would solve this by having 90% of private landlords sell tgheir lettable proerty, thus removing it from the letting market

Oh and of course the theft of what THEY would term "unused" LAND...note land....NOT buildings whos confiscation I approve of under certain circumstances.....

a great solution that.....

Why do they have to be "sent" anywhere? They're perfectly free to find their own housing - preferably something that doesn't cost the tax payers £500 a week. If they can't do that, they should move somewhere they can afford or share with others. I had to do that when I lived in London. It's not exactly news that it's expensive there.

I knew there were people who hadn't got a clue about what is happening to people in this country, I didn't think they were so close to hand.

I can't be doing with all this namby-pamby nonsense. People should pull themselves together and stop expecting the State to pander to them all the time.

Just proved my point. Not a bloody clue.

At least I'm not too stupid to pick a smaller signature.

Are you attention seeking, or just being a moron?

The problem is mass immigration pushing up costs of living.



If You can't afford to live somewhere then move to somewhere you can.



Too many people have been quite happy living in nice places with housing benefit being paid by the tax payer and then using these high costs of rent to then turn down work because it doesn't pay enough to cover costs.


This cannot be allowed to continue.


Don't forget under labours 13 years we saw an explosion in immigration numbers and they were happy to have people living in lives of luxury claiming up to £100,000 a year in benefits to pay For it and doing fuck all for it.


Madness!!!

Tommy Monk wrote:The problem is mass immigration pushing up costs of living.



If You can't afford to live somewhere then move to somewhere you can.



Too many people have been quite happy living in nice places with housing benefit being paid by the tax payer and then using these high costs of rent to then turn down work because it doesn't pay enough to cover costs.


This cannot be allowed to continue.


Don't forget under labours 13 years we saw an explosion in immigration numbers and they were happy to have people living in lives of luxury claiming up to £100,000 a year to pay For it and doing fuck all for it.


Madness!!!

Yes - it's madness to pay people so much in housing benefits. That's contributing to keeping rents high, but they're too selfish to see that.

If they turn down reasonable work, they should lose their JSA anyway.

If You can't afford to live somewhere then move to somewhere you can.



Too many people have been quite happy living in nice places with housing benefit being paid by the tax payer and then using these high costs of rent to then turn down work because it doesn't pay enough to cover costs.


This cannot be allowed to continue.

I agree with this part
but the other part is just blaming other for the laziness of some English people. Sassy is more correct about WHO is causing this it is not the poorer immigrants and you want the rich immigrants to inject money into your economy the issue is Non-resident investors that are just sucking rental profit out of your economy with no value to the community

AND
this is not London specific, I am currently looking at leaving Sydney because the cost of housing is too high, literally cheaper to buy 100 acres 1 hour from Canberra than a 2 bedroom apartment 1 hour from Sydney CBD. (there is work for me in either)

One of the reasons I am very suspicious of it Veya is the social engineering.  London is traditionally a Labour voting area, with the influx of the rich and the moving out of these people the social mix and political base has been deliberately changed over the five years of this government.   Smacks of gerrymandering.

I don't know why people get so outraged by this. When the well-off people in London can't find a cleaner, or when shops start closing because there's nobody to work in them, things will change.

It IS too high immigration that is the problem!!!

Not about whether they are richer or poorer, although mostly poor economic migrants and pretend asylum seekers are the overwhelming majority...



And also a leftie labour muppet now complains about 'social engineering' after 13 years of labour doing anti white British social engineering...!!!???



Fuck me!!!


Do you lefties have no shame at all...!!!???



Another example of how the hypocrisy of The left knows no bounds...!!!



Disgraceful!!!

yes it does seem a tad hypocritical to call it gerrymandering when labour ADMITTED to doing the same with massive immigration.....the price of which we are only now beginning to feel

I do like a good laugh at the end of the night

Blood pressure pills boys?

Cos the Leftie ruining of this country and other countries through illegal wars is SO funny, isn't it rising scum...!?

denial sassy......???

no need to be rude Tommy.......

No need to laugh about ruining the country with such frivolity...

I agree, doubling the debt is no laughing matter:



Borrowing more in five years than every Labour Chancellor added together has ever done, even with bailing out the banks in 2008.

Labours spending commitments that they left behind meant that although incoming govt introduced cuts, all of which labour twats like you complained about, overall borrowing still doubled!!!



Shows how fucked the Labour govt left the economy!!!



Labour opposed all cuts in spending so had they been left in charge then overall borrowing would now be EVEN HIGHER!!!



Although I'm sure you will ignore this cold hard fact of reality and continue with your bullshit that it was the Torys wot done it...




Denial, lies and spin is all you labour mugs have.







Well worth a read of The facts here...



http://www.xymalf.co.uk/govspending.htm#.VULCpkrzyWI

Something rising scum will be desperate. o ignore are these details from the link I provided above....




The Israeli charge is grave: that British aid to the Palestinian government, worth £343 million between 2011 and 2015 is funding generous salaries and bonuses to about 5,000 convicted terrorists.
At the heart of the allegations is an Israeli NGO called Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), which for years has been monitoring statements by Palestinian Authority officials in Arabic media, as well as gathering documents from security sources. It has revealed that under 2004 Palestinian legislation known as the Palestinian Law of the Prisoner, people convicted of terror offences are immediately placed on the Palestinian Authority payroll. The salaries are reserved for those “resisting the occupation”, not those guilty of other crimes. The more serious the offence, the more money is paid. Based on Palestinian documents, PMW says that the longest-serving terrorists receive £2,075 per month, plus bonuses for wives and children. Grants made upon release can be as much as £50,000. The average Palestinian wage is about £312 per month. In 2013, the Palestinian Authority (PA) paid more than £60 million to those convicted of terror offences; of this, £9 million was paid as bonuses when terrorists were released. In February, the Palestinian Authority announced that this bonus pot would be increased to £27 million. A component of this money could be interpreted as legitimate welfare payments, allocated to prisoners to spend in the canteen, or to unemployed ex-convicts. But at least £43 million is awarded directly to terrorists, who are perceived to deserve it for “resisting the occupation”. Britain is a major supporter of the Palestinian Authority, donating about £86 million per year. Dfid maintains that payments to terrorists are not taken directly from the British aid account. But the Palestinian government is heavily reliant on international aid, which accounts for 40 per cent of its £2.5 billion annual budget. The Palestinian Authority continues to pay between four and six per cent of its own resources to convicted terrorists...

Plus....


Britain still pays the wages for the Palistinian Civil Service and Police.

And here's another bombshell for the leftie Labour deniers....




Government now employs more than six million people, 25 per cent of all the country’s workers and, thanks to Gordon Brown, 600,000 more than 10 years ago. Brown also left behind a budget deficit of £170billion a year. Worse still, the unfunded public sector pensions bill amounts to £1.2trillion, equivalent to 85 per cent of our GDP, or £20,000 for every person in Britain.




Well done!!!

Tommy Monk wrote:Plus....


Britain still pays the wages for the Palistinian Civil Service and Police.

What?! Why?

If anyone is interested, here is the plan and spending costs for the Palestinians by the UK.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/389281/Palestinian-Programme.pdf

Stick to topic as you are so fond of telling everyone else.

Sorry Sassy but Labour fucked up our country by spending money we didn't have, we are gradually getting on top of the mess Labour left us.

Utter bollocks.  This government has borrowed more than every Labour government put together and we are not yet back to where we were in 2008, when the banks fucked us up, as Melvyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, and David Cameron (although he has since tried to wipe the speech off the internet) both acknowledged.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/bank-chief-admits-recession-not-4891142

Current UK National Debt Numbers
Gross National Debt
FY 2015* £1.36 trillion
FY 2014 £1.26 trillion
FY 2013 £1.19 trillion
FY 2012 £1.10 trillion
FY 2011 £0.91 trillion
FY 2010 £0.76 trillion
FY 2009 £0.62 trillion
FY 2008 £0.53 trillion

http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_national_debt_chart.html

And I would add that the rise from 2008 to 2009 was caused by bailing out the banks so that the whole economic system didn't come crashing down, a reason the Tories don't have. Instead they give the perpetrators knighthoods and bring them into government.

We have borrowed more because of The rising debt spiral labour left behind!!!

That is AFTER cuts in spending being imposed.


You lefties just don't get it do you...!!!???



Labour opposed cuts and if had not happened then overall debt would be EVEN HIGHER STILL!!!

But now it seems you labour mugs are trying to claim that we should have cut more!?



Shows what a sorry state labour left the countries, finances in!


We're still trying to get out of The hole labour dug us in to!!!

http://www.xymalf.co.uk/govspending.htm#.VULCpkrzyWI

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/labour-should-apologise-for-social-housing-failure-8932797.html

More built during one year of thatcher than the whole of the combined13 years of labour!!!!!!!!!!



Very funny isn't it???



The idiot lefties like you out there, spouting complete bullshit and misleading the British people!!!


Rising scum is the only fitting name for people like you!!!

Yep, built 'em, sold 'em, didn't let Councils use the money to build anymore, and a huge percentage are now let out by private landlords.

There were more council homes built in just one year of thatcher than during the whole 13 years of labour!!!



Fact!!!

Tommy Monk wrote:There were more council homes built in just one year of thatcher than during the whole 13 years of labour!!!



Fact!!!

And then Thatcher stopped councils from using the money from RTB sales to replace them but read on.....

Between 1997 and 2010, some 350,000 housing association dwellings were built. If we look at both housing association homes and council houses, Labour built more affordable properties in 2009 than the Conservatives did in each year between 1987 and 1990.

FACT

Not talking about housing associations...



And the criticism is coming from a labour member here...


http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/labour-should-apologise-for-social-housing-failure-8932797.html

Raggamuffin wrote:People often have to move in order to find jobs or cheaper housing. There's no point living in London on benefits - it's cheaper elsewhere.

Yep my son has moved away an hour away as a well paid job came up sometimes its just how it is .

These aren't people who have found better jobs, in fact many of them HAVE LOST THEIR JOBS because they have been forced to move DOH!