4 Comments

• matt 22nd Jan '12 - 9:46am

  Well lets hope that Nick Clegg discusses the preposterous Welfare Bill that is coming up in the HOL next week. To Cap Benefits and Housing Benefits.

  I was not aware until last night when my Nephew visited me, who is homeless, and today he is moving into a Hostel, and get this, The Hostel is charging Housing Benefit £170 a week.
  At first, I thought he must be wrong, We live in Norwich and the total LHA for a single person in a shared bedroom is £55 a week, for a single person in a self contained room it is £75 a week, so in my eyes i thought how on earth can a hostel be charging £170 a week.
  So I decided to look into it and sure enough, Charities and Hostels are “Exempt” from Housing Benefit Caps and the max they can charge is £170 a week.
  The Hostel that my nephew is staying in is a terraced town house converted into 6 bedrooms, Thats a total of £5000 a month this landlord is charging for these 6 residents, He also owns the terraced house a couple of doors down, which again, houses 6 homeless people for which he is receiving another £5k a month.

  As i said, the only people who can get away with this, are places like Hostels, women refuges and registered charities.

  Why on earth is this Government proposing to Cap benefits at £25k & housing Benefit at £400 a week (For Families) renting from “private landlords” risking hundreds of thousands of people being thrown out of their homes and risk homelessness, but guess what, become homeless and move into charity housing or hostel and there will be no caps.

  This is absolutely ridiculous and all it will do is encourage unscrupulous landlords to become “Hostels” where they can then rip of HB for even more money.

  This government says it needs to cut welfare, and by doing so they are targeting the sick and disabled people unfairly with the cuts, but at the same time they are throwing millions of pounds a week at these “hostels & charities”

  What a complete joke, this government needs to sort its self out and fast

• matt 22nd Jan '12 - 9:49am

  Just to add, the owner of the Hostel told him “Not” to get a job as he would not be able to afford the rent.

  These Hostels are supposed to help people with their problems and get back into work, not trap them with ludicrous rents.

• jason 22nd Jan '12 - 10:08am

  matt….. Posted 22nd January 2012 at 9:49 am

  My grandson, who lives in Cambridge, is in the same position…He is working (minimum wage) but has to leave his current accomodation because the family (with whom he is on good terms) needs the space for an expected baby.
  He cannot find affordable accomodation and has been offered a hostel. The catch? If he continues working the council will not pay the hostel; so he has the choice of ‘unemployment or homelessness’….What a system

• bazsc 22nd Jan '12 - 10:25am

  Saw Clegg

  No real substance but I do have sympathy for him being in this Coalition and having to support things, such as Welfare and health, that have been ‘forced’ on him by the Tories. I still maintain that he should challenge the application of collective responsibility in a Coalition cabinet on matters note in the Coalition agreement

  I also saw mark Littlewood on the Big Question – how did this man win ‘Liberal of the Year’? If this is what the Liberals on this site aspire to then…..