Labour attacks 'skyrocketing' rent rises

[Bad Dog]

From the BBC.

Councils would be given the power to limit "skyrocketing" rent increases under new Labour proposals.

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell will pledge to help people who are "at the mercy of an unforgiving, unrestrained housing market".

Labour is holding a "state of the economy" conference in London over the weekend.

Party leader Jeremy Corbyn will say Labour will "always seek to distribute the rewards of growth more fairly".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36348550

This is more like it, a policy that actually helps ordinary people. It's not housing benefit that needs to be cut, it's excessive rent. Time to curb some landlord's greed instead of stigmatising the disabled.

[mwooldri]

1. Great idea in theory but...

...it needs to be part of a wider social housing policy.

It's the main reason for why I don't live in my home area anymore. If you're single, working retail on a zero hours contract and you're looking to move out on your own instead of living with your parents... then a few things need to happen. You're not going to get any housing benefits as you're single and working, even if you have debt that you have to service. You're not going to the top of any council or housing authority waiting list as you don't have any dependents, not disabled and not old.

Plus rents have skyrocketed since 1997. If you believe the consumer price index, you need about £145 to buy today what you could buy in 1997 - right when I had a low point in my life (dropped out of university due to what I realise now was an episode of depression preceded by a hypomanic period). In 1997 you could get a bedsit for £80-100 a week, or possibly a room in a house for £50. I was getting about £5-6 an hour working retail. Many retail jobs are not paying much more than that... not keeping up with inflation. That bedsit now is over £200 a week. That room is £120 a week.

I wanted to stay in the UK when I met my wife. She's from North Carolina. At that time, she was also in a similar position to me - her university studies were halted but not due to illness it was a lack of cash, and she was working two part time job - one retail, one making mattresses. The decision on where we would settle down was simple. Whoever could get a home for the both of us first wins. She won easily. That's why I'm in North Carolina and not in the Surrey Hills or Surrey/West Sussex border area in England.

Incidentally when I moved to NC in 1999, I looked for work (as anyone coming to a new area without a job will do). I got an entry position at American Express earning the equivalent of £11 an hour for a call centre rep job - much better than anything retail could offer. Eventually we did purchase our own home - a "small" 3 bedroom house on a 1 acre lot. $87,000. My sister met a wonderful guy at university while she was studying nursing and they decided to spend the rest of their lives together (initially without getting married). They bought a house together. A 3 bedroom terraced house - what is called a townhouse in these parts of NC. £250,000. If you take a $-£ exchange rate of $1.40 = £1.00 then that's $350,000. At the time they purchased the house it was more like $1.75 to £1.00. We often joked that they could have bought 5 houses like mine over here for what they paid for theirs.

[Bad Dog]

2. Space isn't at such a premium in America.

That's not going to change anytime soon. It was the Tories who abolished rent limits, it worked well enough before then. And Corbyn is committed to building more social housing.