Vulnerable and homeless being moved out of London

The numerous councils across London are moving the vulnerable population further away from where they currently live due to various housing challenges. It is estimated that as many as 50,000 people have been resettled, and sometimes this is being done in a different county such as Kent.

The lack of social housing, increasing rents in the private sector, and also welfare cuts are causing this to occur. Another primary reason for this was the cap on housing benefits as well as the changes that were made to the bedroom tax. Whatever the underlying cause, the fact is that tens of thousands of families are being impacted in a major way. Many of them are being moved completely from the city.

The moving of families is mostly driven by expensive housing and government cutbacks to safety net programmes. With all of the cuts to housing benefits, many London councils are only placing people into private rental accommodation that fall in the bottom third of rent prices. So this means the accommodations may not be as nice to live in as they were in the past. Some may even be unsafe. This limits the number of homes or flats people can move into.

This issue is hitting all boroughs. In a 3 month period of time in 2014 Southwark moved over 400 people out of the area. Wandsworth moved 374 individuals from their borough, and Newham resettled 323. Those numbers were just for 3 shorts months from July to October of 2014. This information is just now being released to the public.

This resettling of vulnerable families is leading to ever more hardships. Once someone moves, to either temporary accommodations or a new permanent home out of the city of London, they are no longer near their family or other social networks. They often do not have someone to look out for them to ensure they are getting the care they need. And of course if someone is moving to a different London borough or even county then that often causes them to have employment challenges.

Local borough councils just do not have enough money to provide rent help to those that request it. Many of their budgets for families on a low income have been reduced as the central government has cut hundreds of millions from local welfare provisions.

This is really causing many people to not get the help they need. While there are still emergency schemes available in all London boroughs, the number of people being assisted is much lower than in past years. However, anyone can still apply for local welfare, but the amount of support offered will be much less.

Other London families do not know what programmes are available to them when it comes to paying for housing costs. While the council legally need to provide some form of support or advice, the assistance not always well known. For those families looking for information, they can find housing and deposit schemes for London.