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North-west of Skye
by Islay McLeod
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Govan. Photograph by Islay McLeod
I probably agree with Anonymous (7 August) regarding the so-called benefit reforms. Unfortunately, his article only expresses the views of so-called housing professionals from organisations that have grown very strong over the last 15 or so years and not the real victims of these barbaric policies.
The shift to a so-called Universal Credit with abolition of primary benefits such as Jobseeker’s Allowance, Income Support and Employment Support Allowance and passport benefits such as Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit to be replaced with a lump sum of money will place intolerable stresses on people with already limited incomes. The government has already made clear it will not pay a sum equal to the contractual rent but a ‘notional’ sum that will be smaller.
For the sake of creating a ‘shopping incentive’ to turn tenants into consumers, paying the rent will reduce the sums available to pay energy costs, food and clothing.
The new rules reducing the ‘notional’ rent sum even further if people have one room too many will increase these pressures even more. If the Daily Mail is to be believed – and Cameron and Osborne do – then 700,000 people will be affected and a further 150,000 with two rooms too many will, in a matter of weeks, be plunged into rent arrears. Settled couples with children who have left and newly single people experiencing relationship breakdown will be affected. That’s almost a million people who will suffer.
These rules conveniently ignore that the greatest so-called ‘under-occupancy’ is in the owner-occupied sector, and that the smallest public housing provision is to be found in the ‘work-rich’ areas and the so-called ‘gluts’ in the ‘work-poor’ areas. It is ‘under-occupancy’ that is keeping good-quality public housing occupied. Under these policies, demolition is likely to occur as good-quality housing is forced to lie empty while waiting lists grow larger for smaller housing.
It is not only the benefit changes that are causing the crisis. One feature that is also ignored is the ever smaller size of houses and rooms. The owner-occupied sector has driven them smaller for everybody because a house becomes less a place to live than an asset to be sold shortly after its sale price has sufficiently increased. This has a knock-on effect on what is newly built in the rented sector. The government also believes that people should be moving house more frequently. Exactly how this will create stable communities is not explained.
When the government talks about rationing of public housing it sometimes sounds as if they would favour a system of compulsory billeting. Ironically, it is this type of approach that is implied if all financial assistance is withdrawn from under-25s. An implied obligation to house all young adults under 25 years old may be forced on parents. I wonder how many parents voted for that?
The actions of so-called social landlords appears to be to demand that all tenants sign direct debits or other forms of bank withdrawals so that they can make first claim on limited incomes. It won’t be long before the housing officials are seen as no more than grasping money grabbers causing hardship in other areas of life. No wonder housing professionals are worried.
Murdo Ritchie was the last chairholder of the Red Road Tenants’ Association and former vice-chair of the Glasgow Campaign Against Housing Stock Transfer and has worked as a welfare rights officer