Effects of vicious bedroom tax worst than first thought, axe the tax!

As the bedroom tax’s effects grow and grow like an out of control beast the effects are appalling. Worse than many first thought. The National Housing Federation said today that the effects of the bedroom tax are far worse than even it expected. The group said rent arrears have soared and large properties are lying vacant as people refuse to move in. The cruel tax sees housing benefits cut if homes are deemed "under-occupied" despite a perilous shortage of smaller council properties for people to move into. "The impact is at least as bad as we had anticipated, in many respects even worse," federation chief executive David Orr told the BBC. "What we've seen are really bad effects on individuals, people whose lives have been turned upside down, who are very frightened about the future." But out-of-touch Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith insisted that cash-grabbing policy had been a success. The millionaire minister said it showed what a mess Labour had left the benefits system in. He arrogantly told his opposite number Liam Byrne that Labour should either commit to reversing the policy or "stop moaning about it." The shadow work and pensions secretary said Mr Duncan Smith must be "living on a different planet," pointing out that rent arrears had soared by 300 per cent and there were empty houses across Britain. Housing association chiefs agreed. Teeside's Coast and Country Housing boss Iain Sim said: "The numbers of empty homes we've got to let are increasing significantly. "People are now telling us that because of bedroom tax, they can no longer afford to move into the bigger family homes, and as a consequence of that we're getting fewer lettings and more empty houses." Clearly the labour party won’t defend you from this vicious cruel tax which is so anti poor it is dripping with class contempt from the tories. Labour cannot pledge to scrap this tax and thus should not receive our support. If labour councils refuse to pledge not to evict those who have fallen into arrears then I believe that people should stand against them as TUSC and make it clear we will take you on in your own back yard and threaten your seat if you don’t back down. Labour councillors who are more often than not career driven will have to respond when their career is under threat. A serious campaign to protect tenants is needed similar to the bailiff busting army during the poll tax. Phone trees are needed to make sure vicious councils be them Tory or labour tries to evict people for inability to pay this tax. We need to make this tax unworkable, slow the whole process down disrupt it anyway we can and try and force this tax to be scrapped. If labour won’t then TUSC will pledge to scrap the bedroom tax and not evict anyone from their homes. This should be basic working class solidarity if labour won’t oppose it then we will oppose labour.

East Herts see claims for help with rents shoot up

In a fairly decent area of the country where poverty and crime is low relatively compared to other regions east Hertfordshire has seen claims for people struggling to pay rent increase. This is no doubt due to the governments vicious benefit cuts and our local councils unwillingness to fight the cuts. We have a Tory council around here so I wouldn’t expect them to be on the side of the poor but this article below quotes a local Tory councillor who clearly has no idea of the scale of the hardness on ordinary people out there struggling already. SWINGEING benefit cuts have seen almost six times the amount of people asking for help paying their rent than a year ago. Across the board, East Herts Council are being bombarded with calls and enquires from “confused and frustrated” people struggling to make ends meet as Government welfare changes come into force. In April and May this year 146 people in East Herts made requests for discretionary housing payments, up from 25 in the same period last year. A section of the report for the East Herts and Stevenage Council’s joint revenue and benefits committee, which meets tonight (July 1), said: “Customers have been generally confused and frustrated by the welfare reforms and are keen to express this dissatisfaction to officers. “The volume of contacts with customers is very high and often repeated.” The sweeping changes have lead to an increase of 15 per cent in the level of work done by East Herts Council and Stevenage Borough Council’s joint benefits service compared to last year. There has also been 503 more council tax payment reminders sent from May 2012 compared to May 2013, up 17.4 per cent to 3,388 from 2,885. The average value of the reminder is £87.55. Since April, 2,569 people in East Herts who used to get a 100 per cent discount in their council tax are now paying 8.5 per cent. This is after Government reduced spending on council tax support by 10 per cent. East Herts council passed this reduction on; something executive member for finance Cllr Mike Tindale (Con, Little Hadham) called “one of the council’s most difficult decisions” back in February when the budget was set. Speaking on Monday before the meeting (July 1), he said: “It was a very difficult decision about people who were already feeling the squeeze and were asked to pay more. “We were mindful of that and we wanted to spread the burden as wide as possible. “In retrospect, we feel what we did was right but there’s no easy way of making cuts.” Some of these people, which mainly consist of disabled people, the unemployed and those on low income, are paying council tax for the first time. “These customers are resource intensive and are demonstrating patterns of repeat callers,” the report continued. “There appears little understanding of council tax liability and payment requirements.” The report also mentions the benefits cap will hit 42 families in East Herts when it is rolled at intervals nationwide from Monday July 15. With article sourced from http://www.hertfordshiremercury.co.uk/Hertfordshire/Welfare-cuts-see-rent-help-requests-to-East-Herts-Council-up-584-per-cent-20130701131937.htm So more crocodile tears “difficult decisions” etc etc how about these Tory councillors find out what it is like to live on a limited income always worrying how they will next pay the bills and feed themselves. These Tory councillors don’t know poverty and will never know it from their ivy towers. Whilst East herts on the whole is not fairing too bad from the cuts there are still pockets of poverty hidden away from public more often than not but it is still there. It’s those people who are struggling by I stood for when I stood for TUSC this year in the county council elections. Gaining 59 votes in a hugely true blue Tory area with no previous experience of standing was a decent effort. Shows even in leafy East herts three are people looking for an alternative to cuts and misery even if just a few at this stage. We all know cuts will carry on and we must hold firm our time will come as socialists even in areas we’ve never seen much action in in the past. We live in unprecedented times where anything is possible it would seem.