IR – It was a mixed blessing to see ‘Driven to Poverty by Bedroom Tax’ on your front page yesterday, because while it’s good the issue has not been swept under the carpet in the Worcester News there is a glaring omission within the coverage, as well as a description needing some challenge.

In the admirably fair item there is not one word about what Worcester Community Housing will do in the long- term to those with arrears.

Clearly not everyone qualifies for a discretionary payment and such payments are temporary support. WCH ought to be explicit about what the eventual consequences will be.

Social landlords all over the country are fighting shy of telling it like it is and want to come across all touchy feely, because actually they are really about helping people and do not want to appear as a partner with the Government in this brutal change in housing allocation.

Unless this tax is addressed their advisory visits to tenants in crisis with this ‘single room subsidy’ will make way for evictions.

The fact is, they have to collect the rent to fund their activities and develop their stock and will not be able to stand the financial impact for long. The misconception that concerns me comes not from the article but the editorial which states, “What if these scroungers aren’t scroungers at all but war veterans like Doug”.

In this era of ‘Help for Heroes’ this promotes the distinction that veterans are somehow more deserving than other claimants of housing benefit.

I don’t think whether someone is a veteran of a conflict should have any part in judging merits or deficits in this policy (or the related allocation of transitional special payments) because it is an indiscriminate and counter productive device anyway. Whether someone has ever or never worked or in what capacity should have nothing to do with it, otherwise where would we stop?

Child benefits to ‘good’ mothers’ tax credits, to especially valued staff? The ‘bedroom tax’ is toxic. It is an attack on those with nowhere else to go except back to their parents or into more expensive (yes, to the taxpayer) private rented accommodation and homes. They are not just units of space but deeply personal places in which people invest time and money and hold precious memories.

This tells us much about our political leaders who provide support for home buyers (even for second homes) but nothing but debt and fear to housing benefit claimants with a spare (often pitifully small) room.

 

ANDREW BROWN

Worcester