Tank Slap - Motorcycle Forum

I have been in Brum this afternoon and walked briefly into town to buy a few things. In the space of less than a mile, I saw at least a dozen homeless girls and boys in the Street.

It's shameful that this is happening in a supposedly wealthy country. How is it allowed to happen?

Just watching a programme now about homeless kids in Blackpool. I have no idea how anyone copes with life when it appears no one gives a shit about you.

It's going to come down to addiction, mental illness, etc....the usual suspects, in other words.
And the kids themselves are not necessarily the afflicted party rather than the byproducts of it.
A coastal/resort town like Blackpool is not surprising....they seem to be a magnet for people suffering through homelessness.

A big reason for homelessness is benefits. Our benefit system has changed a couple of times recently and they're rolling out something called universal credit. They've had massive issues trying to get it sorted, which has meant tens of thousands of people have not had benefit, which means rent hasn't been paid so they've been evicted.

It's also meant that private landlords are refusing to take on tenants on benefits.

Until the government allows housing benefits to be paid directly to a landlord we're going to have a problem.

Abuse in the home is another reason for being homeless.

It's very easy to find yourself on the street.

There is a direct correlation with austerity and a massive increase of homelessness and working families living in B&Bs. The later not even included in the governments homeless data.

The fall in home ownership across Britain since the finacial crisis is fuelling wealth inequality, new research shows.

The spread of property wealth across Britain in the mid-1990s and mid-2000s fueled a decade-long fall in wealth inequality, but that progress has now gone into reverse.

According to think-tank the Resolution Foundation, one in 10 adults now own around half of the nation’s wealth, while the top 1% own 14% of Britain’s wealth.

Even this figure may be an underestimate given the great difficulties in measuring the wealth of the super-rich. By contrast, 15% of adults have no or negative wealth.

The report shows that the nation’s record £11.1 trillion of wealth is distributed far less equally than earnings or household income, with the Gini coefficient for wealth – a common measure of inequality – almost twice as high.

However contrary to the popular perception that wealth inequality has been rising for decades, the report shows that the inequality of net financial and property wealth fell steadily between 1995 and 2005, with the Gini coefficient falling from 0.71 to 0.64.

and:-

Britain’s billionaires have seen their net worth more than double since the recession, with the richest 1,000 families now controlling a total of £547bn.

While average UK incomes have yet to recover from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, with thousands still flocking to food banks, the financial elite have emerged not only with their fortunes intact, but holding a larger than ever slice of the cake.

Their assets have increased from £258bn in 2009, a rise of more than 112%, according to the 2015 Sunday Times Rich List. The past 12 months saw the biggest bounce for the UK super-rich in six years, and London now has 80 billionaires, up from 72 last year – more than any other world city.

Homelessness is indeed a big problem, but some don't help their cause and when given accommodation prove to be incapable of taking responsibility and prefer the street than a permanent home .
Most have drug and alcohol problems that only they themselves can decide to turn against that lifestyle, and I applaud anyone who does this.
It takes a great deal of inner strength to do that .
Some for whatever reason have fallen foul of family members and quite a lot down to the addictions.

From private landlords who won't take on housing benefit, I can understand as being a private landlord myself of many years , It cost me 40k last year with one tenant who had already lost one child who preferred living with it's father (I use" its "to conceal any gender identity) and then went onto have another ,

They moved the partner in and then stopped paying any rent and totally trashed the property . The bathroom was flooded causing the floors throughout to be ruined, kitchen destroyed , mountains of rubbish everywhere and it took a year for me to get them out . This was costly going to court twice only for them not to turn up, then they are told by the council after getting a court order eviction to stay put as they can't be re-homed until bailiffs are at the door, so back to court again to apply for that

Bailiffs arrived and they walked straight into another flat and no doubt did the same thing again

So no, I will not go down the benefit claimant again and thankfully the other property has been rented by a couple who both work , take care of the property, have actually increased it's value as they have always asked if they can do certain changes which I have agreed to and they pay the rent on time without fail..They can't afford children, but if they do the house has 3 bedrooms so still plenty of room to expand their family if they need to

These tenants get a nice home , in a nice part of the country and know that they won't have to find other accommodation for many years to come if they chose to stay .

There are always those that don't do this and would hopefully think my tenants were in the minority but as a duty to provide for my family and keep a roof over our heads I could not afford to take the risk again.

Being part of the LL's association , my problem sadly isn't a rare one and when children are involved it is very difficult to get an eviction easily ,

Probably closely connected to the thread headline but what an appalling indictment of current society that thsoe in charge deny its even happening.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46236642" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I saw that on the news

What's happening to us?

This i suspect. We are becoming a mini USA - low wages, low skills, high living costs society.

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/ ... revolution" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

duke63 wrote:Probably closely connected to the thread headline but what an appalling indictment of current society that thsoe in charge deny its even happening.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46236642" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Blimey.

C00kiemonster wrote:........
Blimey.

Fwiw I had call to visit an address in the North of Hull city the other week.
I used a SatNav to take me there, it was on a large estate.
The houses were good solidly built 1940-50's authority , judging by the construction, Semi's on fairly wide streets & logically laid out street plan.
Great swathes of the houses had been raised to the ground, leaving only their footprints.
Almost all the others were boarded up, with the occasional (maybe 1 in 50 ?? ) occupied.

StMarks wrote:

C00kiemonster wrote:........
Blimey.

Fwiw I had call to visit an address in the North of Hull city the other week.
I used a SatNav to take me there, it was on a large estate.
The houses were good solidly built 1940-50's authority , judging by the construction, Semi's on fairly wide streets & logically laid out street plan.
Great swathes of the houses had been raised to the ground, leaving only their footprints.
Almost all the others were boarded up, with the occasional (maybe 1 in 50 ?? ) occupied.

Very sad as housing is in such short supply.

It could be one of those half baked council schemes where they knock old houses down and then run out of money before they build the new ones. There are blocks and blocks of houses like that in Liverpool.

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/at ... ocid=ientp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

320,000 people now classed as homeless in the UK.

That is a staggering number.

How can that happen in this day and age in country such as ours?

Telli Afrik and his family became homeless after they could no longer afford their privately rented home, even though him and his wife work.

That says it all really.

And yet the I'm all righters continue to put these utter B@stards in charge. We are the 5 richest nation in the world (probably 6th or 7th after BREXSHIT) and 1 in 5 of us lives in extreme poverty. With the vast majority of the poor actually in work.

As John McDonald said "I can't forgive them... I've never seen human suffering like this."

[video]https://www.facebook.com/bbcnewsnight/v ... 280931546/[/video]

You know you're f*cking up when the UN steps in and has a go at you for your high levels of poverty

https://ctbi.org.uk/united-nations-spec ... uk-poverty" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://www.theguardian.com/society/201 ... rity-in-uk" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/11/ ... ed-kingdom" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The government has completely ignored it and Amber Rudd actually called it politically motivated!

The Country is not rich through manufacturing though. It’s rich through property wealth which is really only achieved through adding debt to the majority. Property prices increase because banks and governments find more ways of allowing people to borrow more money. Ten years ago you could not mortgage into retirement age, now you can. Won’t be long before they find a way of lending to the deceased.

I had this discussion with a client this morning and soon the only way the Treasury can raise revenue is by taxing property , either through taxing of the letting of property or the taxing of selling/inheriting property.

/\/\/\/\
That's a pretty good assessment, all things considered.

duke63 wrote:I had this discussion with a client this morning and soon the only way the Treasury can raise revenue is by taxing property , either through taxing of the letting of property or the taxing of selling/inheriting property.

No that's not strictly true, the government can create money to spend on anything it chooses. Taxation is just the tool it uses to control inflation when it creates too much.

Which is why austerity is a political choice and a big fat fcuking lie!

Raising money and creating money are not the same thing though.r