David Cameron's Assault on the Homeless

[Feck]

Yes you are. It means that people living one their own will "suddenly" have to find someone to share a house with, or "suddenly" have to be able to make up a huge shortfall in the rent. Would you want to share your home with a random stranger?
EDIT: Obviously it's better to share than be homeless, but it's not a matter of choice. Finding a sharing partner will be insurmountable to some.

I'd rather share my home than sleep on the street. There might be a few that just cannot find a roommate - and can't find a landlord that will find a roommate for them - but it seems to me that will be a very small proportion of those affected by the decreased housing subsidy.

There is are a different set of hoops landlords have to jump through to rent to more than one person . The sort of one room bed-sits that landlords rent to single people on benefits they would not be allowed to rent to 2 people .It is very hard to get accommodation when on benefits most landlords don't want to know .

Sharing requires that both people don't fall foul of, not only each other, but the pitfalls in the benefit system . For the sort of people that are most likely to end up on the street, sharing is simply not an option.
If I lose my current tenancy There is slim chance that I would be able to get housing in this city the council very rarely have single person accommodation many affordable housing schemes have 6-12 month waiting lists and prefer to rent to students or the employed .To compound that with having to find a flatmate and make joint applications would make it almost impossible .The changes in housing benefit WILL force a lot of people to sleep on friend's (if they have any) floors .
They make crime and benefit fraud (ie not telling them you have someone staying ) much more common . Ultimately it won't save a penny

[Seth]

Charity is a band-aid solution at best and an enabler at worst. Poverty is systemic, charity is never the answer. Anyone interested in "charity" should give this a watch.

Charity is indeed a band-aid solution to keep the most desperately poor and starving alive, and nothing more. It's not intended to be a long-term support system for the willfully indigent dependent-class proletarian. They are expected to work, and they are expected to work at ANY employment ANYWHERE that will keep them fed and housed. If this means moving across the country and picking onions rather than taking unemployment while sitting in a new home bought with a liar loan in New York while waiting for a high-paying technical job to open up, then so be it.

The government should be deporting illegal aliens and bussing the unemployed from Detroit to the onion fields of California and the cotton plantations of Georgia. There's at least 8 to 12 million jobs being performed by illegal aliens in the US that could be done by American citizens, and I imagine the same is true in the UK. It's just that the lazy, selfish, privileged dependent-class proletarians think it's beneath them to have to do scut-work and stoop labor. Well, those sorts of people can starve for all I care. Benjamin Franklin wisely said that the best way to get the poor out of poverty was to make them "uncomfortable in their poverty."

I'll pay for shelter and food for children, the elderly, and the physically infirm, but anybody healthy enough to work, no way. Get a job, any job, or go hungry.

[Seth]

Yes you are. It means that people living one their own will "suddenly" have to find someone to share a house with, or "suddenly" have to be able to make up a huge shortfall in the rent. Would you want to share your home with a random stranger?
EDIT: Obviously it's better to share than be homeless, but it's not a matter of choice. Finding a sharing partner will be insurmountable to some.

I'd rather share my home than sleep on the street. There might be a few that just cannot find a roommate - and can't find a landlord that will find a roommate for them - but it seems to me that will be a very small proportion of those affected by the decreased housing subsidy.

There is are a different set of hoops landlords have to jump through to rent to more than one person . The sort of one room bed-sits that landlords rent to single people on benefits they would not be allowed to rent to 2 people .It is very hard to get accommodation when on benefits most landlords don't want to know .

Sharing requires that both people don't fall foul of, not only each other, but the pitfalls in the benefit system . For the sort of people that are most likely to end up on the street, sharing is simply not an option.
If I lose my current tenancy There is slim chance that I would be able to get housing in this city the council very rarely have single person accommodation many affordable housing schemes have 6-12 month waiting lists and prefer to rent to students or the employed .To compound that with having to find a flatmate and make joint applications would make it almost impossible .The changes in housing benefit WILL force a lot of people to sleep on friend's (if they have any) floors .
They make crime and benefit fraud (ie not telling them you have someone staying ) much more common . Ultimately it won't save a penny

That's what you get with socialist government bureaucracy.

[Atheist-Lite]

I think the Romans packed them in with high density accomodation. They didn't mess about like people today.

[Pensioner]

This issue is not a stand-alone ring fenced one as Dev suggests in my view. We do owe a duty as a society to the most vulnerable. But this is only one aspect of a massive disinvestment in social infrastructure. We have not really seen anything but the first symptoms of the impact of this in my view.

You are of course correct, but to clarify I think that in any society the homeless are the most utterly destitute, the most completely desperate and visibly hopeless section of the community, and how we treat our poorest reflects on us all as much as how we treat our sick.

A good point, but I could make a strong case for Bankers (let's scapegoat them for the purposes of this) being directly responsible for a predicted raise in the abuse, harm and deaths of children.

Some of the safeguarding systems set up by the last government were a waste of time quite frankly and the worst of those are being abandoned, from my perspective quite properly, however despite the government bleating about protecting front line services, in fact they have not done so. The support for families where children are vulnerable and are either being abused or at risk of being so will reduce. As a result more children will be killed or sexually abused before someone notices they need help and provides it one way or another.

Care to prioritise the two groups now?

I'm not being sarcastic or scoring points, just pointing out some of the consequences as I see them of the policies that are being rolled out.

This is what gets me.

We're fucked if we hammer the super-rich, and we're fucked if we don't. So....

Hmmm. Tough choice.

Time to take to the streets?

What would that accomplish except to destroy more housing and communities through riot and disorder? Every time the blacks riot in LA, they riot in Watts and burn down their own community. The same thing generally happens whenever people "take to the streets." They destroy their own shops and stores, burn down their own communities, loot their own neighborhoods and generally make the problem worse.

Sure, you can "hammer the super-rich," but how much will you be able to extract from them before they flee with their goods and their money to somewhere else that respects their property rights? What happens to the UK when all the capital the "super-rich" have exits the country, which it can do in a heartbeat with the push of a button these days? You can seize the "means of production" (meaning the factories) but what are you going to use for capital to buy raw materials when nobody will loan you any because of the risk that you'll just steal it from them?

Pretty quickly, as happened in the Soviet Union, production will decline, so will wages and employment, and the whole system will collapse because the dependent class insisted on "taking to the streets" to seize the means of production from the bourgeoisie merchant class, but won't be able to run the production facilities to generate wealth.

You are a dickhead Seth.

[Rum]

Nice to see you posting..and in your usual fashion Pen!

[Feck]

Yes you are. It means that people living one their own will "suddenly" have to find someone to share a house with, or "suddenly" have to be able to make up a huge shortfall in the rent. Would you want to share your home with a random stranger?
EDIT: Obviously it's better to share than be homeless, but it's not a matter of choice. Finding a sharing partner will be insurmountable to some.

I'd rather share my home than sleep on the street. There might be a few that just cannot find a roommate - and can't find a landlord that will find a roommate for them - but it seems to me that will be a very small proportion of those affected by the decreased housing subsidy.

There is are a different set of hoops landlords have to jump through to rent to more than one person . The sort of one room bed-sits that landlords rent to single people on benefits they would not be allowed to rent to 2 people .It is very hard to get accommodation when on benefits most landlords don't want to know .

Sharing requires that both people don't fall foul of, not only each other, but the pitfalls in the benefit system . For the sort of people that are most likely to end up on the street, sharing is simply not an option.
If I lose my current tenancy There is slim chance that I would be able to get housing in this city the council very rarely have single person accommodation many affordable housing schemes have 6-12 month waiting lists and prefer to rent to students or the employed .To compound that with having to find a flatmate and make joint applications would make it almost impossible .The changes in housing benefit WILL force a lot of people to sleep on friend's (if they have any) floors .
They make crime and benefit fraud (ie not telling them you have someone staying ) much more common . Ultimately it won't save a penny

That's what you get with socialist government bureaucracy.

You are I take in favour of the poor being at the mercy of slum landlords being packed into poor housing I take it then Seth ?

[Seth]

Yes you are. It means that people living one their own will "suddenly" have to find someone to share a house with, or "suddenly" have to be able to make up a huge shortfall in the rent. Would you want to share your home with a random stranger?
EDIT: Obviously it's better to share than be homeless, but it's not a matter of choice. Finding a sharing partner will be insurmountable to some.

I'd rather share my home than sleep on the street. There might be a few that just cannot find a roommate - and can't find a landlord that will find a roommate for them - but it seems to me that will be a very small proportion of those affected by the decreased housing subsidy.

There is are a different set of hoops landlords have to jump through to rent to more than one person . The sort of one room bed-sits that landlords rent to single people on benefits they would not be allowed to rent to 2 people .It is very hard to get accommodation when on benefits most landlords don't want to know .

Sharing requires that both people don't fall foul of, not only each other, but the pitfalls in the benefit system . For the sort of people that are most likely to end up on the street, sharing is simply not an option.
If I lose my current tenancy There is slim chance that I would be able to get housing in this city the council very rarely have single person accommodation many affordable housing schemes have 6-12 month waiting lists and prefer to rent to students or the employed .To compound that with having to find a flatmate and make joint applications would make it almost impossible .The changes in housing benefit WILL force a lot of people to sleep on friend's (if they have any) floors .
They make crime and benefit fraud (ie not telling them you have someone staying ) much more common . Ultimately it won't save a penny

That's what you get with socialist government bureaucracy.

You are I take in favour of the poor being at the mercy of slum landlords being packed into poor housing I take it then Seth ?

Beats sleeping under a bridge, doesn't it?

Most of the third world manages to get along with many people living together in a small space, I don't know why Brits shouldn't do so. How many soldiers do they "pack" into a barracks room? Why not open up unused military bases to the homeless and let them live like soldiers?

Lots of options if your alternative is a cardboard box.

But the fact is that there are the transient homeless who are simply between housing units, and the hard-core chronic homeless who PREFER to live rough because they want to be free of the rules of society and landlords. You'll never get them in out of the cold.

[charlou]

Most of the third world manages to get along with many people living together in a small space

Yes, let's go with the idea of taking our standards down to third world level.

[Pappa]

You are a dickhead Seth.

Pen, please note that personal attacks are against the rules.

[Coito ergo sum]

I'm not sure what taking to the streets on this issue would actually accomplish. At some point, and I'm not sure if it's been reached yet, there isn't any more money to tax and spend.

Obviously, we want to help the less fortunate, the down on their luck, the sick and the disabled.

However, as I read the article, something struck me about Steven Dent. What do we know of him? According to the article, we know that he "fought in the Falklands and Northern Ireland." We know he had a wife, and she died. And, we know that he had a house to live in, but he walked out of it to try to walk away from his grief. Apparently, he was not physically disabled (that seems implicit in the article's description of him). We don't know how long he's been sleeping under bridges, but the article makes it seem as if it's been a long time - many years.

The article praises Labour profusely, stating that Labour lavished money on the homeless programs, and the homeless were able to get care and help getting back on their feet and resolving their problems. So, I wonder - why is Mr. Dent still homeless? Based on what the article tells us, he has a severe mental disorder that needs treatment. I mean - everyone has serious losses of family members during their lives - spouses, parents, children - etc. But, most folks don't opt to go sleep under bridges when they have perfectly good homes and beds to go to. So, what did all the lavish spending under Labour do for Mr. Dent? And, how many other people are still homeless, still jobless, still grieving, despite all the lavish spending? Why wasn't he referred to a psychiatric hospital, given that there is an NHS to deal with all these issues - ought he not to be in a facility somewhere, being treated with therapy and psychotropic medications as determined by a licensed physician?

In short - why is Mr. Dent still under that bridge, and given that we all want him and people like him to be in a home, employed, fed and receiving health care - what is it going to take to get him out from under that bridge?

[Feck]

Most of the long term homeless have mental disorders ,and yes more mental health professionals should have been involved but they tend to be the untreatable disruptive patients or just never diagnosed ,some people will always slip through the net . It is easy to demonize them and this Government seems to be happy to remove frontline services so the gaps in the net are much much bigger .

[Coito ergo sum]

Most of the long term homeless have mental disorders ,and yes more mental health professionals should have been involved but they tend to be the untreatable disruptive patients or just never diagnosed ,some people will always slip through the net . It is easy to demonize them and this Government seems to be happy to remove frontline services so the gaps in the net are much much bigger .

It just seems strange that someone would write an article which praises the lavish treatment and care that are being canceled by using as example number 1 a person who slipped through the cracks.

[Seth]

Most of the third world manages to get along with many people living together in a small space

Yes, let's go with the idea of taking our standards down to third world level.

Beats sleeping under a bridge.

One would think that in a time of crisis, Brits would loosen the rules up to increase residential density, rather than having people sleeping in hedgerows and under bridges. I seem to recall they got all cosy together during the Blitz when they huddled together in the Tube stations.

But, since the UK is headed for third-world status anyway, because it simply will not give up its socialist pretensions, it's something they probably need to get used to sooner rather than later.

[Seth]

I'm not sure what taking to the streets on this issue would actually accomplish. At some point, and I'm not sure if it's been reached yet, there isn't any more money to tax and spend.

Obviously, we want to help the less fortunate, the down on their luck, the sick and the disabled.

However, as I read the article, something struck me about Steven Dent. What do we know of him? According to the article, we know that he "fought in the Falklands and Northern Ireland." We know he had a wife, and she died. And, we know that he had a house to live in, but he walked out of it to try to walk away from his grief. Apparently, he was not physically disabled (that seems implicit in the article's description of him). We don't know how long he's been sleeping under bridges, but the article makes it seem as if it's been a long time - many years.

The article praises Labour profusely, stating that Labour lavished money on the homeless programs, and the homeless were able to get care and help getting back on their feet and resolving their problems. So, I wonder - why is Mr. Dent still homeless? Based on what the article tells us, he has a severe mental disorder that needs treatment. I mean - everyone has serious losses of family members during their lives - spouses, parents, children - etc. But, most folks don't opt to go sleep under bridges when they have perfectly good homes and beds to go to. So, what did all the lavish spending under Labour do for Mr. Dent? And, how many other people are still homeless, still jobless, still grieving, despite all the lavish spending? Why wasn't he referred to a psychiatric hospital, given that there is an NHS to deal with all these issues - ought he not to be in a facility somewhere, being treated with therapy and psychotropic medications as determined by a licensed physician?

In short - why is Mr. Dent still under that bridge, and given that we all want him and people like him to be in a home, employed, fed and receiving health care - what is it going to take to get him out from under that bridge?

Likely nothing anyone can do will get him there. Some people actually LIKE the freedom that living rough provides them. Many of the hard-core homeless are addicts and sociopaths who simply cannot function in regimented society. As a former soldier, Mr. Dent may be suffering from personality disorders that make him extremely adverse to authority and conflict. He may want to simply be left alone and not bothered by the nattering do-gooders and self-righteous twats who think that they know what's best for everyone else that the UK (and the US) seem to be stuffed to the gills with.

The whole socialist system in the UK seems utterly determined to bring order and compliance to everything and everyone. It's as if the UK is "too civilized" to endure the smallest bit of individual liberty, and it must societally oppress and repress everyone and force them into this little mould that they have of proper conduct, even if the individual doesn't want to be moulded.

My instinct is to leave Mr. Dent the fuck alone unless and until he asks for assistance. He may be mentally ill, but if he's happy, or at least satisfied with his existence to the point that he's adapted and isn't demanding anything from anyone, treating his mental illness is more of a crime against humanity than simply letting him live his life as he chooses, even if it kills him, and even if it makes others uncomfortable that he's not being compliant and obedient to society's expectations.