"Affordable housing key to welfare reform" — Taxpayers Against Poverty

Guest blog piece from Rev'd Paul Nicolson of Taxpayers Against Poverty

TAP Letter in The Times –  14  August 2014  - AFFORDABLE HOUSING IS THE KEY TO WELFARE REFORM – MORATORIUM ON “DEPENDENCY”

Sir, May I suggest a moratorium on the word dependency in the context of the welfare debate (“Beveridge’s Bequest”, leader, Aug 12)?

In February 2013 there were 5.1 million claimants of housing benefits in the UK. Tenants in particular totally depended on that benefit to keep a roof over their heads. Come April 2013 and the poorest large families (£26,000 annual limit) and single people (spare room supplement) had their housing benefit cut, leaving rent unpaid and eviction threatening.

Low-paid single people, widows and widowers, around 50 to 60 years old, becoming ill or unemployed for the first time in a long, working, tax-paying life could no longer depend on the rest of us to keep them in their family home among vital community support. The policy is to force them to move to make a better use of affordable social housing. Large families with young children suffer the same fate just because they happened to be large on April 6, 2013.

A very small minority of benefit claimants might be dependent on benefits to such an extent that it is corrosive to the wellbeing of individuals. Most need them but wish they did not. Yet all are publicly branded and their incomes reduced, even though the fault lies with the lack of any governmental policy to provide enough affordable housing for many decades.

Rev Paul Nicolson
Taxpayers Against Poverty