earning £42K a year for doing nothing?

A lot of poor people in the cities here live in apartments and back in my hometown all the low income housing were houses, but they had changed from apartments in the late 70s/early 80s because they thought it caused less problems. 

I think it is all based on a population/space ratio. 

Yeah - section 8 housing in the US looks like what it is.  I mean, it's not awful, but you can tell. 

I go back and forth on this a lot.  I certainly wouldn't want to deny benefits to anyone who needs them, but there are a lot of people taking advantage of the system (in both countries). 

Although to be honest, 42k a year for 9 people?  That doesn't sound like a lot. 

Considering the list is about 11 years in my area and growing anyone who needs one here was SOL under Labour as well. 

And that was one of the hardest issues with this election. 

Yeah, I've heard the waiting list in our area is years long, too. When DH and I were worried about the possibility of both of us being made redundant last year, we discussed the possibility of getting government housing if we had to, and he said it was next to impossible to get it, because the people who do get the available housing rarely move out. So it wouldn't have done us any good, anyway. Fortunately we didn't need to worry about that, though!

Yeah, I've heard the waiting list in our area is years long, too. When DH and I were worried about the possibility of both of us being made redundant last year, we discussed the possibility of getting government housing if we had to, and he said it was next to impossible to get it, because the people who do get the available housing rarely move out. So it wouldn't have done us any good, anyway. Fortunately we didn't need to worry about that, though!

You can apply to some housing associations direct, separate from council housing, Jewlz. Though I think you'd need to have ILR (sorry, I don't know where you are in your visa journey). It might be worth investigating to see if you can get on non-local authority linked housing associations (i.e. ones that are independent), as a preventative measure.

Try http://www.housingnet.co.uk/

http://solar.northumberland.gov.uk/default.aspx?page=3804

HTH.

I told him "no", because where I come from, poor people don't live in houses. (They live in apartment blocks.)

heck where i come from poor people lived in trailers and in trailer parks. even people who lived in apartments were looked at better then people in trailer parks

You can apply to some housing associations direct, separate from council housing, Jewlz. Though I think you'd need to have ILR (sorry, I don't know where you are in your visa journey). It might be worth investigating to see if you can get on non-local authority linked housing associations (i.e. ones that are independent), as a preventative measure.

Try http://www.housingnet.co.uk/

http://solar.northumberland.gov.uk/default.aspx?page=3804

HTH.

Hmmm... Yes, it might be worth doing that. Things seem ok at the minute, but you never know with this place.   We were in administration last year and there was a management buyout at the last minute that saved the factory from going under. But they are having to borrow drastic amounts of money to keep the business going in the hopes it will pay off when we launch a new brand toward the end of the year. So far, it looks promising, but who knows what will happen in the future? I don't have ILR yet, but I will be applying next month, so at least if anything should happen to our jobs after that (and it looks fine for at least the rest of this year) then we could both get benefits while we look for other jobs.

Hmmm... Yes, it might be worth doing that. Things seem ok at the minute, but you never know with this place.   We were in administration last year and there was a management buyout at the last minute that saved the factory from going under. But they are having to borrow drastic amounts of money to keep the business going in the hopes it will pay off when we launch a new brand toward the end of the year. So far, it looks promising, but who knows what will happen in the future? I don't have ILR yet, but I will be applying next month, so at least if anything should happen to our jobs after that (and it looks fine for at least the rest of this year) then we could both get benefits while we look for other jobs.

:/ Tough situation Lovely, it's hard when you don't know what's going to happen around the corner.

Housing Association stuff is normally pretty good, it's not in big blocks like Local Authority housing, it's normally private rental places, you do pay rent but it's very much reduced.

To stray a little off topic, it should be interesting to see how the new housing benefit cap will affect London.

(Basically, if I get it right, it'll be set at around £400 per week, instead of at the median rent for a particular area? Which means that councils like Westminster are already talking about housing families out in the suburbs rather than downtown.)

Will this cause a drop in rents in the capital, as the benefit was basically a subsidy/nice little earner for landowners? Or are there enough rich folk to take up the slack and large segments of the city will be even more like Manhattan, post rent control?