130,000 Families Living In One-Bed Flats

More than one in ten children in England are living in overcrowded homes, with 130,000 families squeezed into one-bedroom flats, the National Housing Federation (NHF) claims. In a new report analysing government data the body said around 1.3 million children from more than 600,000 families are stuck in overcrowded living conditions. A poll carried out by ComRes for the NHF found more than one in four children in overcrowded homes have to share a bed with a parent or sibling – affecting up to 368,000 youngsters. One in four affected adults – as many as 380,000 people – often sleep in kitchens, bathrooms or hallways. Read more on Inside Housing.

https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/130000-families-living-in-one-bed-flats-says-nhf-01-62918?utm_source=Housing60&utm_medium=email&utm_content=article_link&utm_campaign=H60

Cost Of Renting One-Bed Property Soars In UK

The cost of renting a one-bedroom property in the UK has risen to swallow almost half of the average young worker’s take-home pay, according to figures. The average cost of a new tenancy on a one-bedroom home hit £746 a month in May, taking up 48% of the take-home pay of a worker aged under 30, data from property firm Countrywide showed. Rising rents had outstripped growth in earnings to such an extent in the capital that since 2007 the proportion of take-home pay used to meet the cost had increased from 41% to 57%. The firm said tenants were responding to the higher costs by moving into house shares. Read more on the Guardian website.

Thousands Were Waiting To Downsize Before Bedroom Tax

Almost 40,000 households across the North of England were on the waiting list for one-bedroom social homes just as the Bedroom Tax came into force. Opponents warned at the time that people had ‘spare’ bedrooms only because of a lack of available smaller properties following years of councils selling off their social housing stock.  Labour MPs across the North have reacted with fury at the figures, which they say highlight their concerns that thousands have been unfairly hit with the “pernicious” and “ideological” bedroom tax thanks to government failure to build enough homes. Read more on the Newcastle Chronicle website.

Freud Deliberately Misleads House of Lords Over Bedroom Tax…Again!

Did you know – according to the ignoble Lord Freud – that:

·         200,000 1 bed properties become available in social housing each year

·         There have been “a matter of more than 100 FTT (bedroom tax) appeals.”

That is what he told the House of Lords and he is yet again being totally disingenuous.

1)  200,000 one bed SRS properties each year?

The actual and universally accepted figure is 68,000 not 200,000 and so we see Lord Freud tripling the amount of the real figure as is his want.

2) “…a matter of more than 100 FTT appeals?”

Having personal knowledge of over 80 bedroom tax appeals myself just from one small part of Merseyside alone and further knowledge, some first-hand and some second-hand of a further few hundred bedroom tax appeals in Merseyside and hundreds more across the UK we again see Lord Freud knowingly misleading the House of Lords yet again. Read more on the Speye blog.

Now Even Conservatives Want To Change the Right-to-Buy

In the areas hit hardest by the housing crisis, two thirds of right to buy homes sold since 2010 had one or two bedrooms. These are the very homes that David Cameron and the coalition (via the HCA middleman) are encouraging social housing providers to build more of, to deal with the downsizers pushed out of their existing homes by the 'bedroom tax'. Since Cameron re-launched the discount home buy scheme for social tenants when he came to office almost four years ago, thousands of properties have been lost to private ownership. Right-to-buy might be popular, but at a significant cost – to which politicians are now wising up. Read more on the Guardian website.