Exploiting the housing system

Published: 9 July, 2010

• INTERESTING to read Karen Buck MP’s Forum (Prepare for a perfect storm, July 2).

However, surely we must all agree that the Housing Benefits system needs radical reform.

As a Peabody Trust tenant I know just how much this area has been “ghetto-ised” over the years.

Means-testing has ensured the bulk of the tenants now inhabiting social housing belong primarily to the lower socio-economic “classes”.

Our rents are roughly one third of those in the private sector for which I and no doubt others are grateful, reducing the potential number entering the poverty trap.

The gradual reduction in the availability of social housing over the years has surely been exacerbated by the sale of council housing, the cream of which was inevitably sold off quickly.

This housing is now lost to the cheap rented sector for ever. How many of those families possibly affected have nobody in work?

It’s a catastrophic situation which requires radical surgery.

Under the Local Housing Allowance system, for example, anyone paying rent of £250 per week and in receipt of Jobseekers Allowance can expect to receive in excess of £315 per week in benefits, at least, not taking into account other “concessions” in addition.

Therein lies the problem of finding some job paying at least in the region of £20,000 to make the work worthwhile! A person stuck in that position can easily be trapped in poverty for years, perhaps indefinitely.

It might be said that low-paid workers deliberately “deprive” themselves of the work incentive by choosing to live in central London!

The system determines that landlords can charge exorbitant rents in full knowledge the taxpayer will pick up the tab!

The system is being exploited by landlord and, unwittingly, tenant alike.

It is surely not too much to expect prospective tenants to seek lower rents, perhaps in less salubrious surroundings than the centre of London.

I WALKER
Dalgarno Gardens, W10