What next with welfare benefits reform?

On 14th February, I attended one of the most powerful and moving meeting I have been to as a Councillor. It really hit home, to everyone there, what welfare reform will mean for our communities. Thanks to residents groups for organising the event.

As we all know, Camden has for a long time been a vibrant place with a good social mix and strong communities. However, we are now seriously at risk of losing this and ending up with a borough which is the preserve of the wealthy with poorer people pushed further and further out of town. This begins to look fearfully like Paris where the suburbs erupt in violence with unsurprising frequency.

With high property prices and unaffordable rents, this has already begun. Welfare Benefits reform add to this problem, with the cap on universal credit making it unaffordable for those on low incomes and not in social housing. Its not just a question of not getting quite enough housing benefit, but of getting much less than is needed to rent a home in most parts of London. And its not just the 761 families the Council talks about, as its many more people without dependents. On top of this the bedroom tax, reductions in Housing Benefit for people with spare rooms, is likely to push those in social housing out of Camden too, as people with spare rooms who haven’t been able to downsize will be left with unaffordable rents. It’s a half baked policy as those who could downsize like older people are exempt.

So what can be done about this? On the one hand, we must campaign together for a humane benefits system that puts value on community ties, family links and diversity. In the longer run, such policies reduce the burden on the state. On the other we must campaign for stronger regional policies that mean there are both jobs and housing in other cities. And on a local level we must ensure the most vulnerable are protected, even if this means an increase in the Council Tax or charges which impact on those who can afford to pay.

We can also do more to create and free up housing, which means a more humane policy to encourage downsizing, as well as building new affordable housing where it doesn’t reduce the well-being of existing residents. Simply building more and more is also unsustainable. The Council's policy to give people incentives to downsize is a good one, recognising that leaving ones home is rarely a positive experience. But we also need to think about what older people may want. The Greens would like to see Camden Council supporting co-housing arrangements with more shared space including for visiting relations. We also simply need better systems for flat swapping of social housingand stopping the conversion of flats to single homes. This may ameliorate the impacts but will not reduce them sufficiently or soon enough.

So at this moment in time, we also need to protest and push for halting the implementation of the Welfare Reform Act until these issues are addressed, whilst at the same time being clear that at a local level the most vulnerable must be protected.