Spacedone wrote:ephemerid wrote:If you live in social or council housing in the Borough of Wandsworth, and you are eligible for the Under Occupation Penalty, you might get a letter from the council offering new accommodation - in Birmingham.
Wandsworth Cllr. Simon Hogg, who represents Latchmere and Battersea in the borough, has Tweeted a copy of the letter. In it, the council says it has properties in the private sector in the Birmingham area available to rent.
If you move, you can get £2,000 in expenses, plus between £3,500 to £5,000 cash depending on how many bedrooms there are in your current home in Wandsworth. Move from a 2-bed in Battersea to a one-bed in Brum and you get £5,500 in total.
That council is controlled by a Conservative majority.
I wonder how many people, struggling with money, will take up this bribe to be socially cleansed from their community?
How is that not considered an attempt at gerrymandering/social engineering?
...and what are the total costs (financial and human)? £5.5k to move....lost rent to local authority, presumably an unoccupied property to maintain (edited to add, following Ephies comment above) or sell off (presumably to a nice friendly non-dom landlord for private rental), loss of local/family support, worry and stress for parents about schooling etc etc....but if I'm not mistaken, this has been going on for at least 3 years...and, oh look - the 'Irritable Dim Sh1t' believes
(TM) ...'But Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith said there were "thousands of houses" within five miles of Newham which fell within the cap'...
'Newham's mayor, Sir Robin Wales, blamed government policies which had left his borough "chasing around the country trying to find ways to deal with people who are in need". He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We have got a waiting list of 32,000 - we've got hundreds of people looking for places to stay and the result of government benefit cuts, which are still working through as well, means that many more people from wealthier parts of London are looking for places to live in London and they're just not there.'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17821018
...and what's this?...
The Independent* has published research showing that these things have made it harder for those on low incomes to afford housing in London - the area of the UK that has been hardest hit. The reforms and rising rents have led to accusations of 'social cleansing' - now given further weight with the news that more than 50,000 families have been forced out of their local communities in the capital and dumped in new neighbourhoods in outer London or out of the city completely.
http://www.unison.org.uk/news/unison-ca ... -cleansing
I'm still waiting for someone (in the MSM/TV) to challenge the 'it's not fair that someone should be able to live in a house with more bedrooms than they need (in our opinion) using Housing Benefit (paid directly to landlords)....so we've changed it and we think that's fair'...but...you thought employing Coulson was fair, ignoring direct orders from the Information Tribunal (NHS Risk Register) was fair, sending over 1 million fellow citizens to foodbanks was fair, accepting over £1m in donations from HSBC between you was fair, laughing in the face of MPs desperately trying to make the hardships of constituents count in parliament was fair....I'm going to stop now as I feel I'm starting to rant - suffice to say - here in Hope (just north of Peterborough and...what's that you say?...there's a landslide on it's way?
) following the installation of a Labour majority the 2 Eds will need more than just an emergency budget to save the NHS - they'll need immediate action on a range of things, including housing and housing benefit....and the MSM won't be able to avoid reporting more truthfully - I often wonder how they (the lickspittle journos) are going to write post-Mililandslide...I'm not quite sure how you can get a tone that is derisive about Labour, sycophantic about the Murkydochian Monsters, whilst reporting the reality of the last 5 years (and not what they've been told to think).
* they're (The Indy) still backing the Coalition of Cretinous Callousness, though eh?