Nowhere Left To Go

Being lost, and about to be homeless is the sad and inevitable consequence of the housing catastrophe we live in. Many people are googling, and even asking me as a last resort about a simple problem: they have nowhere left to go.

These unfortunates are not roofless (the unofficial reality is that to be accepted as homeless, and therefore housed, applicants must be at the very least sofa-surfing to count, such is the demand.) No – these people are desperate and close to disaster.

The reasons are quite straightforward. Because of benefit cuts and the bedroom tax, tenants are being forced to leave their home and are looking for a new place.

But they are flat-hunting whilst in limited poorly paid employment or claiming, and face referencing, extreme vetting and the need for guarantors. Letting agents, certain landlords and even a few housing associations now require spotless reputations, despite the fact that life is messy and human beings make mistakes.

As Tenancy Relations Officer Ben Reeves-Lewis has said hereabouts, even Sir Alan Sugar went bankrupt a few times before becoming ‘Suralun of You’re Fired Towers.’ And as I’ve said here, people lose money when holding fees are swallowed after non-pristine credit checks, and then…well then where do they go? Find a guarantor, except guarantors are increasingly asked to earn disproportionately high levels of pay.

Next up: prices. Agents and owners conspire to ramp up prices where demand is high, leaving claimants and the low paid struggling to cover their rent, and punished by homelessness for their inability to afford the buttock-clenchingly large sums required in certain areas of the country.

The next reason for the precarious nature of housing is supply, and competition for a limited number of suitable houses. This is getting worse with housing benefit cuts, as many people are in desperate need of one bedroom flats under the cruel and ridiculous bedroom tax (don’t tax the bankers – punish the poor.)

The next spectre pushing tenants into the abyss is that of adverse personal circumstances. Being unemployed, or even on low pay makes for an undesirable tenant, and such people face being turned down everywhere they go: letting agents avoid them, and landlords spurn them – despite there being a depression. As I wrote about previously, having kids is also a no-no. As are pets. And just not looking right.

Something is very wrong in housing land. It’s strange how often these fatal flaws are surmountable by cash: pay six months rent in advance, and all flaws are ignored.

In Manchester, and other areas where there was an oversupply of urban Dovecots, prejudices were immediately and strangely overcome when agents and owners endured a lengthy void. They found their homophobia, loathing of the jobless and kids overcame by need and greed. Elsewhere, the perfect tenant (professional – often arriving as a couple even for a one bed) are welcomed in.

Meanwhile, the gathering storm is swirling in the distance: homeless figures are spiralling. I wrote while back I write that something very bad is going to happen. Well, now it’s begun. Brace yourselves: it’s going to get ugly.

Once Upon A Time.

This is a delayed reaction caused by extreme shock. I knew it would be really bad. By ‘it’ I mean of course the new regime. By regime I mean of course Grant Shapps, George Osborne and Ian Duncan Smith - aka The Three Stooges.

Over the years, I grew chillingly cynical, to the extent that I think I am being sarcastic even when I talk to myself. So why am I so incredulous at the latest pronouncements on housing? I thought I was immune, and am checking to see whether I’ve missed the point, or my brain fell out of my ears, or if all those ‘stupid’ tablets I've taken are starting to happen.

Here then, is the story. In the beginning, there was the housing market, which was quite deliberately cranked up, with humungous price rises seen as undeniably a good thing (naysayers were stoned to death.) A multitude of amateurs from the tribe called The Neophytes invested in property, because they didn’t have a pension. Rents rose.

Meanwhile the expansion in buy-to-let construction created vast swathes of identikit one or two bedroom flats, but as for much needed family housing – dream on, you deluded peasant. And yea, the rents rose. And then they fell, as flats were too numerous. And lo - the investors did go bankrupt. There was a plague of letting agents in Ipswich, and swarms of value consultants descended upon Birmingham. Verily we were being punished.

Given the climate of increasing job insecurity and pensions falling through the floor, I’m not convinced it’s the fault of the people who invested in property – I even suspect this is a deliberate ploy to undermine the working people, as those on short term contracts become more malleable, pliable, and simultaneously – breakable.

And still people just wanted somewhere to live. But jobs were hard to find. And through no fault of their own, people who didn’t expect to visit those lovely chappies at that marvellous Jobcentre+ thingy found themselves existing/subsisting/clinging to dear life on £64.30 per week (“…HOW much?”)

And then they lost their houses, but landlords were still ramping up rents and tenants had to claim Local Housing Allowance which didn’t cover all of their rent, and they had to top it up, because the landlords, the government, the banks – everybody actually - had encouraged rents to rise.

And then...and then…the new coalition government slipped into power. And they did spake unto the people exiled as ‘scroungers’ punished them with a budget that put a cap on the rent allowance: £240 a week for a one bed flat – even in London (really! I am being serious, I am not making that part up.)

What happened next? People couldn’t pay the rent, and fled to the imaginary social housing that was never built, or the pretend council houses that were all transferred or that never actually existed, or to the private rented homes they could afford, but which were miles away from friends, family, safety and jobs. Failing that, they became homeless.

This fairy tale does not have a happy ending. It is a horror story.