Evictions To Help The Economy!!

      According to Sweet & Maxwell,(legal information providers), tenant evictions by landlords have risen to 36,177 for the year June 2012 to June 2013. This is the highest in 5 years, an increase of 9% on the previous year. We all accept that the governments “bedroom tax” has pushed already struggling tenants over the edge and must be blamed for most of this increase. Of course we should not forget the last few years of enforced austerity measures had already taken thousands to the brink of financial collapse and ever closer to that eviction. As Daniel Dover, co-author of Residential Possession Proceedings, has been quoted as saying, “Rising rents on residential property and falling real wages are trends that have been in place for a number of years, and have stretched the finances of an increasing number of tenants to breaking point.”

      Campaign group False Economy, through a Freedom of Information request, received figures from 114 local authorities, indicating that because of the “bedroom tax”, a minimum of 50,000 are adversely affect and facing rent arrears problems. You can add to that number by approximately 30,000 tenants in housing association property.

      Recently a much smaller survey, found that one household in four, 25%, affected by the “bedroom tax” have found themselves facing rent arrears for the first time. According to the National Housing Federation, just over 50% of 63,578 tenants from 51 housing associations were unable to meet their rent payments in the first few months of the introduction of this tax. The worst affected area being Barrow in Cumbria, where more that 75% of all council tenants have fallen into rent arrears since the introduction of this brutal tax. Other areas are showing figures of around 50%. That is a lot of anxiety, stress and misery.

     We are not alone in seeing this tax on the poor as unfair, brutal and unacceptable, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on housing Raquel Rolnik has called for a rethink on the policy after finding the reform was causing “great stress and anxiety” to “very vulnerable” people.

      Will rent arrears, the ensuing poverty, and the actual and threatening evictions, be the spark that will light the fire? The fire is inevitable, as sparks are flying everywhere, ATOS, workfare, zero hours contracts, decimated social services, continuing austerity in the midst of arrogant wealth, and a government that is no more than a thin mask for blatant corporate greed.

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