Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,895
Surely that is scaremongering by the Independent regarding eviction even though many are behind with their rent either by choice or not.
We all know the stupid bedroom tax was a poorly thought out and illogical scheme with not enough spare smaller properties available for those being pressurised into moving.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
I wonder also about the 'Contingency money' spend. Each time the so-called bedroom Tax is mentioned we are told that there is money available to Councils to help out the worst effected.
Is this money being spent as intended?
Below is a link to the False Economy group...
http://falseeconomy.org.uk/Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Keith Sansum1
- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
seems on question time last night apart from ken clark no one else agreed on the bedroom tax
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
I saw that Keith. I didn't come away thinking Ken was entirely in favour. It seemed that it was his job to push his Party line, but yes, his was a lone voice.
He did mention the huge amount of money available to help the policy through this 'transitional phase', making mention of a category or two of situations where this money could help, and yet we know here that it just is not so.
Also, good Party man that he is, he had another go at the divide and conquer ploy with the WMD-word, 'Fairness'.
'Can it be fair to pay extra benefit to those who have rooms to spare?'
Thus treating the population more as Snails than the Hermit Crabs we are, as if people grew these problems on their own backs. [Not to mention that such benefit goes to the landlord.]
BUT
As Ken is such a good Party man, and so makes much of 'Transitional Relief' perhaps other local Party men can publish their spend of this money?
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 716- Registered: 9 Jun 2011
- Posts: 4,010
This could produce another `U` turn.
Courtesy Independent.
Bedroom tax crisis: Ed Miliband commits to abolition of controversial benefit cut - if Labour win next election
Archbishop of Canterbury joins chorus of voices condemning 'vicious' policy
Ed Miliband pledged to abolish the Coalition's "vicious and iniquitous bedroom tax" if Labour is returned to
power at the next election.
In a keynote announcement at the start of his party's Brighton conference, Mr Miliband said the next
manifesto would include a commitment to scrap the benefit cut - which has been condemned for plunging
thousands of council tenants into rent arrears.
Mr Miliband said Labour would make up for the £470m the spare room subsidy is meant to save by
reversing some of the Government's tax cuts for businesses and George Osborne's "shares for rights"
scheme. The pledge opens up a clear policy divide between Labour and its Conservative and Liberal
Democrat opponents and is likely to be a major issue at the next election. While Mr Miliband is nervous
about committing Labour to reversing other Coalition benefit restrictions, he believes he can win the public
argument over the "bedroom tax" because of its perceived unfairness.
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
Its a good move reg but will need to be costed
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
according to the report in 245 it has been costed keith.
Jan Higgins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,895
What happens when a person has agreed to downsize but has to wait for a place to become available.
Do they still have to pay the extra for their empty spare rooms even though they are waiting to be re-housed??????
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
The idea of 'costing' is yet another red herring.
If you travel by train on a Family Rail ticket, your children will each occupy a seat at well below the price that an adult would pay if they bought a ticket to travel 'on the day'.
Would it be reasonable then to chide the Rail Company for offering Family Rail tickets?
No doubt railway companies take this point into consideration and limit the availability of such cheap-travel to off-peak services.
It may be desirable to coax those people who have made a home for themselves and their brood to consider down-sizing as their offspring fly the nest in order to make way for the next generation of home-making tenants. (Just as there would have been pressure from these same tenants to up-size as their family grew.)
However, this is the UK, and it is inescapable that, no matter who is in Government, the affairs of the population are organised in a sternly patriarchal fashion. We are each inculcated into the habit of 'looking up' for guidance and support;not just in terms of welfare, but also in many other ways where Government action seems counter intuitive - but is explained away, from on-high, as being in the country's best interest:HS2, Trident replacement, privatisation of National assets etc.
How can it be, that the problems that beset the provision of suitable housing can solely or mainly be laid upon the home-maker?
Generally speaking, two half-pints of milk are priced higher than one pint. If a supplier of milk, for whatever reason, has his shop filled with half-pint bottles:How long would he stay in business if he were not to sell two such bottles for the same price as a one pint bottle?
What sense would it make for him to pass the onus for his own error onto his 'loyal' customer?
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
How the bedroom tax is bringing despair to a Tory heartlands village...
"Memories - happy and sad - suffuse the modest, neatly decorated three-bedroom house that Jean Baxter has lived in for 35 years. Treasured pictures of her children and grandchildren smile down from the walls. From her bedroom window, she can see the gravestone of her baby daughter, who died soon after being after being born, not long after they moved in.
Baxter, 60, has lived in the rural Bedfordshire village of Marston Moretaine all her life. Her children and their families live locally. Baxter provides childcare, often at unsocial hours, for one of her daughters, a nurse and single mum with four children under the age of seven. But this carefully nurtured, close-knit network of mutual support, however, is rapidly unravelling.
A year ago, Baxter learned she would be affected by the bedroom tax. Since then, she has been preparing, reluctantly, to move. She's sold furniture, and packed many of her belongings into plastic containers as she anxiously waits. "It's my home, I can't imagine not living here," says Baxter. "Obviously at some point I knew I would be moving to somewhere smaller - when I could no longer climb the stairs - but I feel I'm being pushed out."
In principle, she's not opposed to the idea that she should move somewhere smaller in the village, freeing up her home to a young family living in overcrowded accommodation who need it. But there is no smaller property for her to move to, and, extraordinarily, there is no sign of a desperate young family waiting to move into her current home even if she does..."
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/sep/20/bedroom-tax-despair-tory-village Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
well when it comes under scrutiny we will see if it is a real vote winner
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
Guest 671- Registered: 4 May 2008
- Posts: 2,095
I will try to answer some of your questions.
Discretion is down to individual councils with some being more forthcoming than others or I could say some being more aggressive than others.
To be honest I don't think council choice's come into play very much, most decisions having been pre-arranged by central government rules, with the little bit left to the council to decide on, being dictated by financial restraints.
In my position, I was granted 13 weeks discretion on medical grounds, which have now expired and I am now having to pay the bedroom tax on 1 spare room.
As my son is moving out soon, I will have to start paying for two extra bedrooms.
I have applied for discretion again on medical grounds and because I have reluctantly agreed to downsize. I am awaiting a response from that, which is taking a very long time due to a back log of paper work.
Funny that though, somehow because I stated my son would be moving out sometime in the future, for some reason they decided that meant he had already moved out and they sent me a letter telling me I was in arrears and demanded payment.
As for cost of moving, should they ever find me a place to move to, this used to be covered with an enticement payment of £1000, meant to encourage tenants to downsize in the past. Due to this bedroom tax, I am told that this pot has long since run dry in DDC and it would be up to me to pay for any move that might arise.
I have to say that DDC are doing more than some other councils but the money they have been given for discretionary payments will not last long and unless they dig deep into other funds, this situation will get worse, which believe me, many people cannot even begin to know how that feels.
"My New Year's Resolution, is to try and emulate Marek's level of chilled out, thoughtfulness and humour towards other forumites and not lose my decorum"
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
We should not stint in our efforts to do all we can to support the Governing Party in this, their hour of greatest need.
Every ounce of imagination, every last gramme of guile, we should employ...to provide the Coalition with a face-saving means of digging themselves, and so many others around the Country, out from under this debacle.
Answers, in pencil, on the back of a £5 note, to the usual address.
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
Our house is too big but Cantebury council won't let us move out says dad Andrew Wilcox
"A hard-up dad is desperate to leave the council house he shares with his only son - because it is too big for them.
Supermarket worker Andrew Wilcox, 47, wants to move from the three-bed semi in Reed Avenue, Canterbury, to avoid losing £60 a month to the so-called bedroom tax - which slashes benefits for families with spare rooms.
But he says council red tape is stopping him from switching to a smaller home with Shaun, 14 - despite a larger family already eyeing up his under-occupied house off Sturry Road..."
http://www.kentonline.co.uk/kentish_gazette/news/-our-house-is-too-6227/ Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 671- Registered: 4 May 2008
- Posts: 2,095
I have just looked on the homechoice website, 5 sheltered flats one 2 bed house in Dover,
http://www.kenthomechoice.org.uk/choice/PdfFiles/KentPublicFreesheet_DOVER.pdf"My New Year's Resolution, is to try and emulate Marek's level of chilled out, thoughtfulness and humour towards other forumites and not lose my decorum"
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
strange bloke wanting to downsize and can
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
Guest 671- Registered: 4 May 2008
- Posts: 2,095
What strange bloke is that Keith?
"My New Year's Resolution, is to try and emulate Marek's level of chilled out, thoughtfulness and humour towards other forumites and not lose my decorum"
Guest 671- Registered: 4 May 2008
- Posts: 2,095
Tony, Diann and their two daughters live in 3 bed house in Hull. Shanice is three years old. But their 15 year old daughter Stephanie is disabled.
She has 1p36 deletion syndrome, a genetic disorder that causes severe intellectual disability. So she has problems with mobility, speech and language. She has a mental age of a four or five year old.
At the moment, all three bedrooms are accounted for: One for mum and dad, one for Shanice and one for Stephanie.
15-year-old Stephanie requires 24 hour care from her parents. Credit: Family
From April, as social tenants, they will face a cut in their benefits to pay the government's so called 'bedroom tax'. Under new rules, the two girls will have to share a bedroom, because they're both under 16 and both of the same gender.
Therefore, the family will be deemed as having a spare bedroom.
So they have a choice: Take a 14% cut in benefits or downsize to a smaller place.
http://www.itv.com/news/2013-02-08/disabled-children-and-their-families-hit-by-governments-bedroom-tax/"My New Year's Resolution, is to try and emulate Marek's level of chilled out, thoughtfulness and humour towards other forumites and not lose my decorum"
Jan Higgins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,895
A 3 year old should not have to share with a 15 year old even if she is not disabled, I had enough problems with my girls sharing a room when they were growing up and there was only a 6 year gap between them.
Out of interest has anyone gone or planning to go to court over an unfair ruling like they did with the disability benefit withdrawals. BTW my daughter-in-law recently won her court case but it must have taken about 18 months to get it sorted.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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