Westminster Council's ?3m homeless tab

[Porn Baron]

Councils pays housing benefit to tenants instead of Landlords. Some of these people fail to pay the Landlords. Landlords can only get money paid direct if tenants get 2 months in arrears and fill out a form. Tenants are also told by councils to stay put until courts evict them. Or they wont get help. This can take months leaving landlords out of pocket. They are then evicted and made homeless and become the councils problem.

Then the council wonders why good private Landlords don't want people on housing benefit. The council also pay monthly in arrears. A private tenant pays monthly in advance and must usually put down at least 1.5 the monthly rent as a deposit. Why take a risk on people on benefits. You only get scammed once.

The only rentable accomodation left for people on benefits is the shit old run down leftovers that are run by the don't care landlords. Or expensive B+B which costs the council a fortune.

[Jonone]

[David Johnson]

from our Muslim friends

[randyandy]

It's their council btw

[Bob Singleton]

David Johnson wrote:

> Yes this really is the world of Alice in Wonderland.
>
> 1. Thatcher's government sells off huge quantities of the state
> owned council housing stock at knockdown prices and refused to
> let councils replace the stock. The Labour government did
> little to correct this.
>
> 2. The coalition introduces its own right to buy scheme.
> Discounts of up to ?75,000 are offered ? four times the current
> deal on offer in London and treble the discount for residents
> in the rest of the country. Apparently this time the houses
> will be replaced with new affordable rent properties.
>
> 3. There is no control of private rents.
>
> And surprise, surprise, we have a housing problem. Who would
> have thought it?
>
> So is the government spending huge amounts of money to
> replenish the housing stock to try to alleviate the problem?
> Of course, not.
>
> Instead it is spending it's money on schemes such as providing
> up to 20% of the cost of a home funded by a shared equity
> loan, which will be interest-free for the first five years.
> This will be for new build homes up to the value of ?600K.
> This should help to generate a housing bubble, increase house
> prices and further increase rents.
>
> Meanwhile as you point out the government is paying enormous
> sums of money for hotel accommodation for those people for whom
> council housing is not available.


And what housing is being built in London are expensive apartment blocks, where over 70% of the properties are being marketed overseas as they are the only ones willing to buy off-plan, so the developers get most of their money back before the build is completed, allowing them to do so again elsewhere in the capital.