“Affordable” rent gives social landlords the financial incentive to evict the bedroom tax tenant
“Have you ever wondered why social landlords have not stood four square behind the social tenant in the bedroom tax? Could it be the governments ‘affordable’ (sic) rent programme gives social landlords a strong financial incentive to evict the bedroom tax tenant?” Joe Halewood explains why social landlords benefit from the bedroom tax but taxpayers don’t.
The bedroom tax: only fair to private tenants?
“Of all the arguments made for the bedroom tax, the most slippery is the one about it being ‘only fair to private tenants’. That should change after an all-party report published this week.” Jules Birch points out why the bedroom tax is unfair to social tenants compared to private tenants.
Bedroom tax for inept ‘social’ landlords is change quickly or die
“…(the) speed of the welfare reforms will see the social housing model I have known for the past 20 years, the model …will disappear because of the inept indifference of the alleged sector and their inability to respond to change and challenge.” Joe Halewood argues that social landlords need to change or die.
Bedroom tax - unfair, unworkable and counterproductive
“The only way this course is changed is through resistance – from councils and housing associations refusing evictions and supporting court actions to individuals and communities supporting each other and resisting eviction.” Birmingham Against the Cuts describe their campaign for a no eviction policy.
Frontline Friday 27th September 2013: Our favourite frontline blogs this week
Here’s our list of ten frontline blogs we’ve particularly liked from the week of 23rd September 2013 – from local authority cuts, supporting families to the bedroom tax and Labour Party conference.
Labour to scrap the bedroom tax – a huge political mistake and huge opportunity missed
“The Labour Party has vowed to scrap the bedroom tax. They have finally said it after so long. A cause for celebration you would think but as usual the Labour Party makes a pig’s ear of it.” Joe Halewood questions the Labour Party’s approach to scrapping the bedroom tax.
Frontline Friday 30th August 2013: Our favourite frontline blogs this week
Here’s our list of ten frontline blogs we’ve particularly liked from the week of 26th August 2013 - from housing policy and community engagement in health, to the political intentions behind the Government’s Lobbying Bill.
Every local council got every bedroom tax decision legally and badly wrong
“Everyone of the 660,000 bedroom tax decisions was legally flawed. Everyone of the 660.000 bedroom tax victims should appeal the decision. EVERY council got the bedroom tax decisions wrong.” Joe Halewood argues that bedroom tax decisions made by local authorities are flawed because they have not taken into consideration room size.
1 million UK working families now NEED to claim housing benefit
“Over a million jobs in Britain are only affordable because housing benefit is claimed or put another way without housing benefit employers in the UK would struggle to fill 1 million jobs.” Joe Halewood of SPeye looks at the recent dramatic rise in the number of working families who are now claiming housing benefit.
The bedroom tax DHP – the catastrophic and unseen effect on social housing
The myths of the discretionary housing payment, the DHP, has never been fully considered yet it needs to have far more consideration by the tenant, the landlord (social and private) and local councils. To not look at DHPs is a huge mistake for all of these actors or stakeholders. The coalition have been saying to […]
The Under Occupation Regulations, aka the Bedroom Tax, may result in perfectly good homes being demolished
Housing, it’s a funny old thing. And successive governments have struggled to come up with coherent strategies to deal with the challenges. It all began going horribly wrong with: a fundamental shift in the 1980s away from capital investment, replacing it with increasing revenue support, resulting in the spiraling cost of housing benefit (I have blogged […]
How to get rid of the bedroom tax overnight
The bedroom tax according to the coalition is treating the social tenant the same as the private tenant for housing benefit purposes. So let’s do precisely that and abracadabra the bedroom tax is history! To explain: social landlords simply rent their social properties through their private arms and their private companies as landlords and this […]
Rent is the new grant
At the CIH Conference last week, Housing Minister Mark Prisk said that the new funding settlement for housing would involve ‘something for something’. To get a small slice of the increasingly tiny Government subsidy for new rented homes, providers will have to make a bigger contribution from ‘their’ own resources. Government has been in confusion […]
How and why politicians are avoiding the ‘most difficult’ decisions
Summary Why “we have to take difficult decisions” doesn’t go anywhere near tackling the hardest questions of all I’ve reached that point where I now want to unpick this “difficult decisions” line to take. Politics and policy-making is full of decisions. Some of them are relatively straight forward, others are not – and for various […]
You thought the bedroom tax was bad! The much worse benefit cap starts in 4 weeks!!
“It is a stupid and reckless policy based on political dogma with no economic rationale at all.” Joe Halewood explains why the overall benefit cap will actually cost the taxpayer more and should be abandoned.
Bedroom Tax arrears – huge and why social landlords need a major rethink
The bedroom tax is in its 11th week and social housing is already in chaos. It doesn’t augur well for social housing in its entirety and that is not hyperbole or exaggeration. The scale of the non-payment and part-payments of the tenant rent shortfall the bedroom tax creates is giving shockwaves in the boardroom of every […]
Attacking housing benefit is not the answer, investing in new, affordable homes is
It seems to be flavour of the month to be seen to be tough on welfare, with housing benefit being the latest target of politicians. The latest is Labour’s Ed Balls (‘Labour to examine housing benefit’), but he is just the latest in a line of politicians from all sides to do so. There is clearly […]
Bedroom tax and the significant ‘tenant power bloc’ that’s forming – landlords and IDS beware!
The level of anger and fight the tenant and activist has put against at the bedroom tax policy has surprised me. Tenants have been mobilised into huge numbers and quickly aided largely by social media. The first indications of non-payment and part-payment of the bedroom tax shortfalls are way above expected with Riverside stating 50% non-payment and […]
Will welfare reform address problems rather than creating greater ones?
This post is not about the pros and cons of welfare reform. I think many of the ambitions behind welfare reform are to be welcomed. Rather, this post looks at the practical implementation of these measures and some unintended consequences. Regarding the Bedroom Tax (I feel I can call it that given that on Monday […]
You are ‘infrahuman’ and your government thinks you are ‘stock’ – even if you voted for it
This is a sequel. Last October, Vox Political published Living under the threat of welfare reform, a personal account of the hardships suffered by just one disabled benefit claimant as a result of the Coalition government’s crude and unnecessary attacks on people who are unable to work and must rely on social security. The author expressed fears about […]