One landlord said"The social cost is immeasurable. Lives are being wrecked," he said. "I don't like ethnic cleansing, and that is what is happening."
He described the tenants he was in the process of evicting as "exclusively non-white".
"I don't think that it will save any money and I am very worried about the social implications. What is going to happen to the kids? We have tenants in the office crying, regularly," he said, asking not to be named.
"Secure home life is important. See where this ends up in four years. See what social issues you are going to have… We are asking for trouble."Most of his tenants come from Syria, Iraq, the Middle East.
Janet Townley said she had been forced to split up her family temporarily after being evicted from her home in East Acton on Monday. She was preparing to spend her second night with her husband, her 12-year-old daughter and her seven-year-old son in the Premier Inn in Hanger Lane. She had sent her three-year-old daughter and eight-year-old son, who has ADHD, to stay with her mother.
She had been receiving £450 a week in housing benefit for the four-bedroom house she lived in, but this was capped at £400 a week earlier this year under the new regulations. She was unable to make up the difference, fell into rental arrears, and bailiffs arrived to remove the family on Monday.
Because of her son's disability she has been told the council will try to find her something cheaper within the borough, but for the moment nothing suitable has been found and the hotel room has been booked until next week, costing Hammersmith and Fulham council about £69 a night for each of the two rooms.
"It's very difficult. There are no cooking facilities," she said, adding that she doesn't have much money to buy ready made meals because she has spent all her spare cash on paying for a removal van and for storage for her belongings until something is found for her."My three-year-old just says 'Mummy, I want to go home'. It's horrible."
1 year ago
12 comments:
"One landlord said "The social cost is immeasurable"
Right. Presumably the fact that rents will go down hasn't occurred to him.
Whenever you get some fat cat talking about how the government needs to give more money to "the most vulnerable in society", you know that, whether landlord or social worker, they are creaming off some of it.
Quite revealing listening to Farrage on BBCQT last night. He wants to keep any social housing for those who have been here for generations. Now thats a racist dog whistle if ever I heard one.
IS that roughly where you stand Neil?
A "racist dog whistle"?! What's that? Something that only summons black Labradors?!
Come on, Adrian, you seem like a nice chap; you can do better than this desperate Guardian gutter journalism.
Next you'll be trying to link race and immigration policy, which is only one step from talking about "racists accents" which is only one scrape away from the bottom of the barrel of confusing race and religion so you can accuse people of being "racist" against Muslims.
It's a slippery slope; is that where you're heading, Adrian? Because if you're not confusing immigration policy with race, then what link are you making?
And if you ARE confusing the two, maybe you can be be the first person to explain to me how someone spontaneously changes race the moment they hop on a plane or a boat?
And extending that analogy further, lets say an Aussie wants to migrate to the UK: As they fly across the world, do they spontaneously change race as they fly over various continents? Does it matter which route they take? Or is it only the last place they refuelled? So lets say our Aussie friend touches down in Hong Kong for a fuel-up, is how now Chinese when he arrives?
It's just that I've never managed to get a clear answer to this point. Same happens when I ask someone to define a "racist accent" and how doing an impression of Kim Jong-un enforces "the belief that the genetic factors which constitute race are a primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race".
Once you stop grabbing for soundbytes and think it through, suddenly it all gets confusing.
You accuse me of all sorts of thinks I have not said. If you are merely seeking information on race issues I suggest you look it up and get yourself educated. If your trying to be funny it didnt work.
Dog whistle is a well known phrase referring to a tactic first used in Australia, designed to appeal to racists. Look it up.
Adrian wrote:
"You accuse me of all sorts of thinks I have not said".
Earlier, in response to Neil's point of "Presumably the fact that rents will go down hasn't occurred to him" you said:
"Quite revealing listening to Farrage on BBCQT last night. He wants to keep any social housing for those who have been here for generations. Now thats a racist dog whistle if ever I heard one.
IS that roughly where you stand Neil?"
I watched that episode of Question Time, I've just watched that segment again on iPlayer and I still can't find the clip where Farage says he "wants to keep any social housing for those who have been here for generations".
Perhaps I missed it with the shouty heckling bigoted audience. Happy to stand corrected; iplayer has an easy "link to time" feature which would help.
Assuming he said this, my question to you, which you've failed to answer, is how you've managed to not only link race and immigration, but link Neil's point about rent reduction to "racist dog whistles"?!
This is terrible - using the term ethnic cleansing is cheap gutter rubbish.
You do seem to be a surrogate offendee when you can pin a 'racist' tag on things Adrian.
You have a real opportunity to increase your count in the up and coming elections with the Tories being so far removed currently - this sort of guff does you no favours.
Well spotted on that remark Jonathan.
It is common for the "environmentalists" to be that 2 faced but it takes real talent to be so obvious about it.
For obvious reasons Adrian made no attempt to adress the real point - that those claiming to be concerned about the "vulnerable" usually have another agenda.
This goes in spades for Greens who support making electricity as expensive as possible and then have the barefaced dishonesty to pretend they care about the pensioners they are freezing to death. While this represnts the standard of honesty to be expected from them it is not something whichcould be claimed by a movement which had even 1 honest person in it.
What a lot of comments today, more than Ive had in a long time.
Neil just repeating the same old stuff is just boring. It seems every time you come to my blog you forget everything thats been said and off we go again. Just about anyone concerned with the vulnerable is probably doing it for the best of reasons.
I cant recall Farages words but he did go on about keeping benefits for those that have contributed for generations.
Not really sure what these accusations are about, what is unclear? A landlord called a tory policy it ethnic cleansing, a national newspaper quoted him and so did I.
That doesnt mean that the tories and lib Dems are racist, a policy could be well intentioned but have unforseen consequences. So why all the attacks on me?
Surely we should all be looking not just at policies but at the results. In this case it appeas to be costing money not saving it. And those affected in this case are migrants.
On bbcqt they called it social cleansing, perhaps you would prefer that term
As to the ethnic origin, people are normally left to define that for themselves. Some say they are british, some english for example. Someone on holiday in china is unlikely to consider themselves to suddenly become chinese. I suspect this is a "straw man" argument.
Farage on bbcqt getting it all wrong on. Go in about 2 mins for the bit about generations of brits.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwVvpW5697o&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Ukip have also put this on youtube
Rob wrote:Quite revealing listening to Farrage on BBCQT last night. He wants to keep any social housing for those who have been here for generations. Now thats a racist dog whistle if ever I heard one.
Later, Rob wrote:
Farage on bbcqt getting it all wrong on. Go in about 2 mins for the bit about generations of brits.
Why not just link to the actual time he said it. Here, let me help once again:
http://youtu.be/lwVvpW5697o?t=1m43s
Here's what he actually said:
We need to ask ourselves a question.
What is the social security system for? Is it for families that, for generations, have paid money into the system or is it here for the whole of Eastern Europe? And that is a big debate we need to have in this country.
And your quote was:
He wants to keep any social housing for those who have been here for generations.
At best, Rob, that's a gross misrepresentation of the comment. Many would see it as far worse.
And the guy in the audience was talking total nonsense; he claims you cannot come to the UK and claim any benefits or housing without already working. That's complete and utter nonsense given that the whole context is about EU migration.
One more thing, Rob. This will ONLY affect people whose housing benefit *alone* is greater than £20,800, or £400 per week. You don't think this might be a problem of the system having pushed rents up for greedy landlords?
Then you keep bringing immigration and ethnicity into it. But isn't the whole thrust of many of your arguments that migration only brings benefits to the country and no-one comes here to claim the dole or scrounge?
Kind of an awkward quandary, eh? Square that one if you can. And again, you'd be the first to be able to do that.
Which Rob are you referring to. I am Adrian
I didnt hive a direct quote, just my summation of what he said.
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