What impact are the Welfare Reforms having on Brixton?
- Thread starter soupdragon
- Start date
soupdragon
Well-Known Member
In fact, just found this presentation by the council on the impact for Lambeth:
http://www.lambethfirst.org.uk/public.getfile.cfm?type=multiplefile&fid=1638
http://www.lambethfirst.org.uk/public.getfile.cfm?type=multiplefile&fid=1638
leanderman
Street Party: July 2
that's what I meant, badly written. Sorry
how dare you!
Minnie_the_Minx
someinenhhanding menbag and me ah bollox
I meant I wrote it badly!
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
This is the problem with these "reforms" the devil is in the detail. I looked a bit at the Shelter link but its not good as a summary.
IMO the Labour party should be summarising this and campaigning about it. Also the media. Polly Toynbee has been really good on NHS "reforms" but housing is not something that gets a lot of press. Evening Standard bangs on about house prices etc. As Ive noticed as also happened on this thread.
This is part of the problem. Housing has become not about housing but about an investment. I have a friend who regards her house as an investment for her old age. Which is why she kept on her old flat when she bought a house. It works out in London better to buy a house and get a buy to let mortgage on her old flat. Im not moralising about this. Its the system not how individuals deal with it. Within the present system her actions are perfectly rational. Rational in an irrational system.
Back in the distant 60s there was so much social housing for rent being built that it looked like most housing would be rented. I was listening to a programme on Milton Keynes ( a New Town) it was originally built for rent to ordinary working people from London. One man remembered his parents moving there out of London for that reason. As he said that would not happen now and it was visionary- whatever the faults of Milton Keynes.
As well as housing "reforms" the planning guidelines for England ( not Wales or Scotland) are a charter for developers. The new Government set up a committee of developers to do it. This will not help matters. The outlook on housing is bleak. "Affordable" housing will increasingly be like Medicare is in US. A poor and inadequate "safety net".
There is not votes in it. The NHS reforms have caused a big headache for Tories as there is still a broad middle and working class support for it. It is a universal benefit for people. Politically if housing was provided and seen as public resource and not individual one then I dont think the Tories could get away with there housing reforms.
This sociologist puts up defence of universal welfare state:
" also one of the reasons he sides with the universalists rather than the means-tested lobby when it comes to welfare reforms. "Universal benefits allow people to experience less risks, and when they do they are mitigated," he stresses.
His research also shows that means-testing assistance for the most needy people proves the least effective. "Despite the hunch people have that if you target welfare at the poorest you're going to reduce poverty more by avoiding leakage to the middle classes, there is strong evidence that countries that target the most, such as the US, have the worst records at reducing poverty," he says....He challenges poverty campaigns in the UK to address head-on politicians' concerns around benefit dependency and the so-called something for nothing culture. "Spending on social policy is something for something," he asserts. "[It is] a social investment in the next generation – on good schools and childcare – that manages against risk by preventing people from falling into poverty. And, above all, it is a citizen's right."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/mar/20/wider-view-welfare-state
This goes for housing as well. It should be seen as something we all benefit from. Not talked about as creating "welfare dependency". Or in terms of helping people be "aspirational". It ultimately is a collective resource. The past 30 years of creating a home owners democracy has failed.
Universalism should not be seen as creating dependency or top down State ordering of our lives but the role of the State can be to minimise unnecessary social risk. Which is outside the power of individuals to control. This can mean that individuals can have more individual freedom to fulfil there potential , not less, which will lead to better society for all.
Well that's a defence of a certain kind of State.
IMO the Labour party should be summarising this and campaigning about it. Also the media. Polly Toynbee has been really good on NHS "reforms" but housing is not something that gets a lot of press. Evening Standard bangs on about house prices etc. As Ive noticed as also happened on this thread.
This is part of the problem. Housing has become not about housing but about an investment. I have a friend who regards her house as an investment for her old age. Which is why she kept on her old flat when she bought a house. It works out in London better to buy a house and get a buy to let mortgage on her old flat. Im not moralising about this. Its the system not how individuals deal with it. Within the present system her actions are perfectly rational. Rational in an irrational system.
Back in the distant 60s there was so much social housing for rent being built that it looked like most housing would be rented. I was listening to a programme on Milton Keynes ( a New Town) it was originally built for rent to ordinary working people from London. One man remembered his parents moving there out of London for that reason. As he said that would not happen now and it was visionary- whatever the faults of Milton Keynes.
As well as housing "reforms" the planning guidelines for England ( not Wales or Scotland) are a charter for developers. The new Government set up a committee of developers to do it. This will not help matters. The outlook on housing is bleak. "Affordable" housing will increasingly be like Medicare is in US. A poor and inadequate "safety net".
There is not votes in it. The NHS reforms have caused a big headache for Tories as there is still a broad middle and working class support for it. It is a universal benefit for people. Politically if housing was provided and seen as public resource and not individual one then I dont think the Tories could get away with there housing reforms.
This sociologist puts up defence of universal welfare state:
" also one of the reasons he sides with the universalists rather than the means-tested lobby when it comes to welfare reforms. "Universal benefits allow people to experience less risks, and when they do they are mitigated," he stresses.
His research also shows that means-testing assistance for the most needy people proves the least effective. "Despite the hunch people have that if you target welfare at the poorest you're going to reduce poverty more by avoiding leakage to the middle classes, there is strong evidence that countries that target the most, such as the US, have the worst records at reducing poverty," he says....He challenges poverty campaigns in the UK to address head-on politicians' concerns around benefit dependency and the so-called something for nothing culture. "Spending on social policy is something for something," he asserts. "[It is] a social investment in the next generation – on good schools and childcare – that manages against risk by preventing people from falling into poverty. And, above all, it is a citizen's right."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/mar/20/wider-view-welfare-state
This goes for housing as well. It should be seen as something we all benefit from. Not talked about as creating "welfare dependency". Or in terms of helping people be "aspirational". It ultimately is a collective resource. The past 30 years of creating a home owners democracy has failed.
Universalism should not be seen as creating dependency or top down State ordering of our lives but the role of the State can be to minimise unnecessary social risk. Which is outside the power of individuals to control. This can mean that individuals can have more individual freedom to fulfil there potential , not less, which will lead to better society for all.
Well that's a defence of a certain kind of State.
leanderman
Street Party: July 2
Interesting post. Can't see a redistribution of housing though, however desirable.
Does the existence of housing benefit not show there is a universal welfare state?
It is under assault only because of the ludicrous cost of central London rents, areas I can't afford to live in.
Does the existence of housing benefit not show there is a universal welfare state?
It is under assault only because of the ludicrous cost of central London rents, areas I can't afford to live in.
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
Why cannot housing policy be changed? Its a political decision.
Yes HB is one aspect of a universal welfare state. Which is why the Tories ( and LDs) are cutting it. Its however not the point I was making in my post.
Its the influx of the super rich/ bankers with bonuses that have pushed up property prices. These people dont give a shit about all the people who service there City on low wages. London has become the Butler for the rich. Rent controls could be brought in for London.
Tenancies could be strengthened as ASTs give tenants little rights. People could be paid properly for the jobs they do.
The Tories say this is all about "Fairness". (Labour party are also supporting benefits caps but say they would do it differently.) Its all part there welfare "reforms".
soupdragon
Well-Known Member
Minnie_the_Minx
someinenhhanding menbag and me ah bollox
Who will clean the bogs of the rich once the poor have all been shafted out of London? 
Rich masochists, silly. They'll happily pay to do so.Who will clean the bogs of the rich once the poor have all been shafted out of London?
soupdragon
Well-Known Member
Humanities graduatesWho will clean the bogs of the rich once the poor have all been shafted out of London?
leanderman
Street Party: July 2
This I can agree with
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Most of them have already done so. Bear in mind this has been going on since the abolition of the fair rents structures in the mid-1980s. that's 25 years some of these fuckers have been sucking full-cream milk from the government tit.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
I'm going to have to disagree there. It's not the oligarchs and plutocrats to blame, nor even the bankers with million pound-plus bonuses who've pushed prices up, because the volume of housing they take up is small.
The two prime factors that have pushed prices up throughout the south (south-west just as much as south-east) are:
1) Undersupply of housing per se, and
2) the re-emergence of (albeit demographically-altered) upper middle-class who originally deserted London between-the-wars, but are now recolonising the more expensive/traditional bits, which applies financial and spatial pressures on those with less social and financial capital.
Nah, that should read "London has again become the Butler for the rich".
Yes, they could.
But they won't be.
We all know that "fairness" is much like "freedom" in the mouth of a politician. When they use the word "fairness", they mean fairness in their exploitation of us. When they use the word "freedom", they're speaking of their freedom to exploit us.
Kill them all.
soupdragon
Well-Known Member
I agree - bankers aren't really directly to do with house prices, though they are in that they are symptomatic of the same overall shift in the uk economy – why the undersupply of housing? It's the project for the embourgeousification of the working class (as Owen Jones was well stating on the Today Prog on Radio 4 this morning), and getting everyone to have houses as security to borrow so they become entrepreneurs, and above all else, the inflation of credit-based asset bubbles because there's no industry anymore, there's no 'regime of accumulation' innit, just the hope that there'll always be some new market to exploit somewhere, some more flexible accumulation. And look where we are now.
Agreed but I figure this is only as much of an impact because of the lack of rent controls and social housing (and with ref to the discussion on the Moorlands Murder thread recently – it's because of the 'permissive society' again – if you live in the suburbs you're not AUTHENTIC, but if you live in the inner city, you ARE.)
leanderman
Street Party: July 2
The two prime factors that have pushed prices up throughout the south (south-west just as much as south-east) are:
1) Undersupply of housing per se, and
2) the re-emergence of (albeit demographically-altered) upper middle-class who originally deserted London between-the-wars, but are now recolonising the more expensive/traditional bits, which applies financial and spatial pressures on those with less social and financial capital.
Kill them all.[/quote]
i largely agree, but you are missing one point:
that london's population is growing. that puts pressure on housing
and i have not seen southwest prices rising in line with the southeast
there is london and the rest. two nations. excepting a few spots like Bath, Oxford
1) Undersupply of housing per se, and
2) the re-emergence of (albeit demographically-altered) upper middle-class who originally deserted London between-the-wars, but are now recolonising the more expensive/traditional bits, which applies financial and spatial pressures on those with less social and financial capital.
Kill them all.[/quote]
i largely agree, but you are missing one point:
that london's population is growing. that puts pressure on housing
and i have not seen southwest prices rising in line with the southeast
there is london and the rest. two nations. excepting a few spots like Bath, Oxford
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
Correct that London has become Butler "again". Historically a lot of working people in London were servants of one kind or another for the rich. The large number of pubs in Mayfair, for example, were originally for the the footmen etc of the rich. The upper class had there own clubs to go to.
The upper middle class have, as u say, in the South West pushed up price of housing. Its where I originally come from. House prices down there are comparable to London leading to same problems of lack of affordable housing.
I still think the super rich who come here have pushed house prices up. I notice a lot of Chinese shopping in Bond street now as well as the Russians.But maybe its in certain areas of London. Heard someone saying when he was student in early 60s he lived with his friends near Hyde Park and the museums. As he said that wouldn't be possible now. This has a ripple effect imo in London on prices.
Im around the West End a lot so I see these super rich. Maybe its more in my face than for some.
One Hyde Park is another example. No % of affordable housing there. And most flats are owned by front companies of the super rich from abroad.
Ive also found that the Upper Middle Class have not got much of an idea of how others live. We are , in this country, living in a fragmented society. As I heard John Lanchester also say of London when discussing his new novel Capital.
Gramsci
Well-Known Member
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9708000/9708663.stm
7 minute podcast of that section of the Today programme here. Also bit from historian pointing out large scale home ownership is historically recent. And it was Keith Joseph who said he wanted the embourgeousification of the working class. Something that goes back to Butlerism in the 30s I think.
In the "authentic"
mainly working class community I was born in ( Plymouth by the fishmarket/ harbour) most of the housing was privately rented by the fishermen who worked the Trawlers. It was affordable though most lacked amenities ( there was decent wash house at end of road we used to all use and I remember the big tin bath the fisherman couple upstairs had). They liked living there and didn't want to move to the Council housing outside the area. There were no murders but a lot of drinking . As the fishermen were 3 days out at sea and 3 at home. This wasn't anything to do with permissive society. It was originally how many working class communities lived. There were also arty drop out crowd ( my background) who lived there as it was cheap then. Blame Orwell for slagging off the suburbs not the permissive society.
co-op
But....but cLoWnFiSh....
I don't know that supply of housing per se can be a factor in house prices because if no one (or only a very small minority) can afford to buy them then supply is irrelevant.
For just average little flats and houses in unfashionable areas to have reached the crazy kinds of prices they're at now it's not the supply and demand of houses themselves which has been crucial but the supply and demand for the credit to buy them with. As we know that credit was being thrown around with great abandon by banks and building societies all through the Great Moderation, supported by politicians since the "wealth" being "created" by this ridiculous asset bubble made it look like the economy was booming I'd see that as much more the cause. Cheap money = expensive houses.
To some extent this explains the fact that it hasn't yet come crashing down, since with de facto zero interest rates, buyers/owners are still able to hang on in there, unlike the 90s crash when interest rates were up at 15% and mortgage holders were being strangled by the banks. But I can't see how this can keep going up, for the life of me. We still have cheap money but it's getting harder and harder to get hold of, something's got to give. Shame it's fucking up so many peoples lives in the meantime but hey that's the market.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
But it's not the case that "no-one" can afford to buy, is it?
What's actually the case is that the pool of buyers is restricted to those that can afford (by hook or by crook) to buy or raise a mortgage in straitened economic circumstances, but that restriction still leaves a pool of buyers that exceed the stock of available housing.
But also limited development of any and all types of housing = expensive houses.
What explains the lack of a price crash is pretty simply the fact that the government cannot afford to formulate any policy that could have an adverse effect on the housing market. Our economy rests on the notional value of that housing. Disturb that, and the whole house of cards becomes unstable, in a way that would likely be worse than the "banking crisis" because it's effects wouldn't be mostly abstract to "the general public".
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Yeah, but it's a factor amongst other factors. Population growth alone can't account for the current situation. Mix it in with under-supply (for whatever reasons), and we more closely approximate what has happened.
I didn't say "in line", I said that the south-west has been affected by the shortage as bady as the south-east.
I'm not sure I can agree. If it were just the case of London and the occasional "hotspot", the issue would be contained to those areas. It isn't. Go anywhere in the south-east and south-west and look at the prices of "starter homes", or of 2 bedroom flats - the prices are in general beyond what a couple both earning the median wage (£26,244 in 2011) can afford on a multiplier of 3x joint salary. And sure, there's schemes of various sorts where you can part-buy and part-rent, but let's not fool ourselves that this takes place on any great scale, or that it's a solution as opposed to a sticking plaster.
Laughing Toad
Turn the volume down please.
Price is always a function of both supply and demand. Always.
If you don't even understand this, how can you expect anyone to listen to anything you say?
co-op
But....but cLoWnFiSh....
Price is always a function of both supply and demand. Always.
If you don't even understand this, how can you expect anyone to listen to anything you say?
Thanks for the little tutorial.You have lovely pretty graphs and everything. Pity you didn't understand my point. Here let me try again and I'll do my best to keep it simple for you.
The supply and demand I was talking about was the supply and demand of money (i.e. credit, i.e. lending, i.e. mortgages), not the supply and demand for houses.
co-op
But....but cLoWnFiSh....
Also from the same page that Laughing Toad cited.....
First one looks a bit funny (a bit like some of the increase figures, it just looks too big to me) but otherwise these seem pretty credible. I think there are some mugs buying just now who will end up paying a mortgage for years and then having to pony out capital when they want to move just like the people listed below
Previous
sale pricePrevious
sale dateRecent
sale priceRecent
sale dateChange
(%)AER
(%)Address
£215,000 Jul-07 £162,500 Nov-11 -24.4% -6.2% Flat 4 79 Sternhold Avenue
£191,000 Jan-08 £179,000 Dec-11 -6.3% -1.6% Flat 3 128 Christchurch Road
£335,000 Jul-07 £324,000 Nov-11 -3.3% -0.8% Ground Floor Flat 20 Holmewood Road
£149,950 Jun-07 £144,950 Dec-11 -3.3% -0.8% Flat 31 Fairview House Upper Tulse Hill
£282,500 Apr-08 £275,250 Oct-11 -2.6% -0.7% Flat 7 Leigh Court, 2 Bascombe Street
£242,500 Jun-07 £237,000 Dec-11 -2.3% -0.5% 29 Belvedere Place
£295,000 Feb-07 £290,000 Oct-11 -1.7% -0.4% Flat 6 130 Dalberg Road
£139,000 Dec-05 £137,000 Jan-12 -1.4% -0.2% Flat 91 Pullman Court Streatham Hill
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
The housing market has been moving in opposite directions, depending on whether the houses are being bought by the rich who are still getting richer or people who need somewhere to live and can't get a mortgage. But I'd be surprised if many of those big leaps weren't investors doing up somewhere tatty and selling it on for a quick profit. When we sold our (very tatty) house, we had a couple of sales fall through because the banks wouldn't lend, and then suddenly there was a stream of cash investors coming through the door. With the stock market in chaos and interest rates headed for zero, they were looking to pick up places that could quickly be improved with a bit of cash and then sold on quickly. That was early 2009, IIRC - just when house prices started to level out from the dive.
leanderman
Street Party: July 2
The Office for National Statistics says London's population will rise (from 7.9m in 2010) to 9m in eight years (2020) and to 10m in 2030.
It's only a prediction (and could be too high if the govt succeeds in cutting immigration) but I would be amazed if that level of demand for housing does not influence prices.
It's only a prediction (and could be too high if the govt succeeds in cutting immigration) but I would be amazed if that level of demand for housing does not influence prices.
Minnie_the_Minx
someinenhhanding menbag and me ah bollox
leanderman
Street Party: July 2
If the ONS is right, it will be like the Olympics every day ... for the rest of our lives.
Minnie_the_Minx
someinenhhanding menbag and me ah bollox
leanderman
Street Party: July 2
and government departments
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