With your help we can make a difference in fight to end poverty (From York Press)

There are two underlying causes of this issue.

1 - 1997-present house price bubble, which was essentially started by Gordon Brown's decision to remove tax relief on pension interest in 1997, which resulted in savers and investors piling into property instead. It was then exacerbated by Blair/Brown's policy of unsustainably low interest rates, with the result that people were deterred from saving by investing in the productive economy, and encouraged to put their money into bricks and mortar. In 1997, house prices averaged 3-4 times the national average salary. They now average 9-12 times, with very big variations depending on what part of the country you live in.

Other developed countries, notably the US, have let their house price bubbles burst naturally. We didn't, as both Labour and the coalition tried every trick in the book to keep the bubble inflated: nationalising Northern Rock and taking on its bad debt, having the taxpayer foot the bill for the mortgage interest of homeowners who lose their job, reckless levels of borrowing to keep consumer interest rates down, you name it.

Added to that, our current housing legislation around private renting (the 1988 act, and specifically the Assured Shorthold Tenancy) was designed around the assumption that people would only be renting for a year or two at the start of their adult lives, and that most of us would aspire to become homeowners (one of the more positive aspects of Thatcher's legacy). But thanks to the 1997-present housing bubble, two generations have now been forced to become long-term private tenants, with all the insecurity issues that the AST brings with it, in a massive transfer of wealth those under 40 to a cadre of baby boomer buy-to-let landlords.

The solution is as follows: ban interest only mortgages, no more bank bailouts under any circumstances, end taxpayer-funded mortgage interest payments for the unemployed (homeowners have the option of insuring themselves, and if they choose not to, that's their choice), and heavy regulation of the private rented sector (e.g. caps on rents and letting agents' fees), such that the boomers will be encouraged to put their nest eggs somewhere else and free up homes for those who need the security of owning and living in them.

2 - and this is the controversial one - the story notes that the lady being chosen to figurehead it was 'evicted through no fault of her own'. She wasn't evicted: she signed a contract for a fixed period of time, the contract ended and that was that. The AST system is clearly no longer fit for purpose and I would support wholesale change to it: but it's what exists at the moment, and so the question has to be asked why she decided to have kids when (a) she could not afford to bring them up and (b) she could not provide a secure home to bring them up in. Having children is not compulsory: it's a choice. The other problem here is that too many people believe that they should have the freedom to make that choice without the responsibility to deal with its consequences.

Oh and while we are at it..let's blow up the house of parliament..
People like you have no idea do you?
You may have children of your own,IDK and I do not care..if you do i feel sorry for them..We have children because we love them,we don't go in to the clinical aspect..can we afford etc..we have them because we love them
Take a good long hard look at yourself in a mirror..
Well done press,I am 100% behind you..

help stamp out poverty well first we need to get every one on level tax platform where you are taxed on true income and not income after some accountant as moved it in to different schemes to lessen your tax bill and companies shifting there tax points to were ever they can get a good deal on the amount of tax pay

untill that is done there will be all ways poverty

most working people who are in poverty because companies do not want to pay proper wages to those at the bottom of the company

we can complain as much as we like about people on benefits but the only people who really get the benefit of the benefits we pay to people are the companies who pay the absolute minimum wage and a government that as no interest in stopping poverty as it's friends would need to come up with proper pay rates and pay more tax them selves


.

Guy Fawkes wrote:
There are two underlying causes of this issue.

1 - 1997-present house price bubble, which was essentially started by Gordon Brown's decision to remove tax relief on pension interest in 1997, which resulted in savers and investors piling into property instead. It was then exacerbated by Blair/Brown's policy of unsustainably low interest rates, with the result that people were deterred from saving by investing in the productive economy, and encouraged to put their money into bricks and mortar. In 1997, house prices averaged 3-4 times the national average salary. They now average 9-12 times, with very big variations depending on what part of the country you live in.

Other developed countries, notably the US, have let their house price bubbles burst naturally. We didn't, as both Labour and the coalition tried every trick in the book to keep the bubble inflated: nationalising Northern Rock and taking on its bad debt, having the taxpayer foot the bill for the mortgage interest of homeowners who lose their job, reckless levels of borrowing to keep consumer interest rates down, you name it.

Added to that, our current housing legislation around private renting (the 1988 act, and specifically the Assured Shorthold Tenancy) was designed around the assumption that people would only be renting for a year or two at the start of their adult lives, and that most of us would aspire to become homeowners (one of the more positive aspects of Thatcher's legacy). But thanks to the 1997-present housing bubble, two generations have now been forced to become long-term private tenants, with all the insecurity issues that the AST brings with it, in a massive transfer of wealth those under 40 to a cadre of baby boomer buy-to-let landlords.

The solution is as follows: ban interest only mortgages, no more bank bailouts under any circumstances, end taxpayer-funded mortgage interest payments for the unemployed (homeowners have the option of insuring themselves, and if they choose not to, that's their choice), and heavy regulation of the private rented sector (e.g. caps on rents and letting agents' fees), such that the boomers will be encouraged to put their nest eggs somewhere else and free up homes for those who need the security of owning and living in them.

2 - and this is the controversial one - the story notes that the lady being chosen to figurehead it was 'evicted through no fault of her own'. She wasn't evicted: she signed a contract for a fixed period of time, the contract ended and that was that. The AST system is clearly no longer fit for purpose and I would support wholesale change to it: but it's what exists at the moment, and so the question has to be asked why she decided to have kids when (a) she could not afford to bring them up and (b) she could not provide a secure home to bring them up in. Having children is not compulsory: it's a choice. The other problem here is that too many people believe that they should have the freedom to make that choice without the responsibility to deal with its consequences.

A simple view of the world from a very simple man.

People cannot always tell how life is going to be in 2 yrs, 1 yr, six months. The fact is that any one of us is only an accident, a bereavement, a relationship break-up or a redundancy away from poverty. Not something most of us consider when deciding whether or not to have children!

All these surveys that homless charities do, the council and Joseph rowntree have done over the years and nothing gets done.and things are only going to get worse over the next few months .I for one will lose a fair bit I don't mind paying my way like paying some rent and council tax but to also have to pay higher gas/electricity going up and up food going up all the time.the government are not stopping energy companies putting up their prices while they are making millions.just hope old people and young children don't die because it comes downto eating or heating

Really.....does the Press have no shame? (sorry that was a rhetorical question). Jumping on the bandwagon of a dead child to sell papers. The Guardian report was sensational journalism of the kind The Press would have been proud of. It was an unexplained death (i.e no-one knows what caused it)....I'm not aware that there is an established link between SIDS and damp housing. There is a link to other things (like smoking and pets) but The Press isn't interested in balanced journalism so we don't know whether either of those applied. Did the family bother to do anything to reduce the effect of the mould (like wiping it off the walls rather than leaving it there to make a point). Condensation damp arises from normal household living rather than building defects, so it is something you have to control rather than something you can necessarily eradicate entirely. That means taking responsibility for your home....we all have to do it....as much as I would like to be able to call someone from the council to wipe it off for me. If your house has heating and windows to provide ventilation, use them to reduce condensation and then get off your arse and wipe any off any mould that grows. Seriously, did you see the mushroom in that video? (how long would that have taken to develop?). Overcrowding will obviously make it worse but surely two adults and two children couldn't have been placed in a one-bedroom flat by council? The real story that has really been missed here is the drastic shortage of houses in this country and the sorry lack of will by the current and previous governments to do anything about it. Remember this council has retained its own housing stock rather than sell it off and would surely like nothing more than to build more houses there was the investment available to enable it to do so. Changes to benefits (particularly housing benefits) that are due will bring more people into poverty and increase homelessness but people still need to take responsibility. The lesson is, don't assume the council will be able to give you a house; spend wisely so that you can keep a house over your head; and if you do need to turn to the council don't expect it to be able to give you the house you want, when and where you want it. Times are changing....hopefull
y one day more homes will be but in the meantime, get with the programme.

Changes to benefits (particularly housing benefits) that are due will bring more people into poverty and increase homelessness...

In the very short term, possibly. In the long term, however, it will reduce homelessness and poverty by driving house prices and rents down. A big problem during the '00s was that housing benefit was for all practical purposes unlimited: greedy buy-to-let landlords could and did write themselves blank cheques from the taxpayer, which drove up rents and also had the unwelcome side effect of forcing those who pay their rent out of earned income to spend a greater proportion of it than ever before in keeping a roof over their heads (incidentally, when I was helping her move a couple of years ago, we discovered an old rent book of my mother's from 1972: after running the figures through an inflation calculator website we established that she paid £129 a month in today's money, to rent a two-bedroom maisonette with a good sized garden in Wimbledon. A similar property would cost around £1,400 a month to rent today).

When housing benefits are capped, where are all these BTLers going to find private tenants willing - and crucially, ABLE - to pay the artificially inflated rents that they've been raking in from the taxpayer over the last decade? Good luck finding hundreds of thousands of willing tenants earning £60-70k a year, because realistically, that's what they're going to need. So some of them will sell up, increasing supply and driving prices down towards the point at which young families can think about buying again; while others will reduce their rents to realistic levels. This might mean that the BTLers can no longer buy a brand new BMW and go on five long-haul holidays every year, but I can't say that I'll be shedding any tears over that.