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Wednesday, September 11, 2013

UN Condemns the UK

Under the government's benefit changes social tenants deemed to have more bedrooms than they need have had their housing benefit reduced since April. The change will save around £500m a year and free up much needed larger properties.

Former urban planning minister in Brazil, Raquel Rolnik, the UN special rapporteur on housing, recommended the abolition of the bedroom tax – which the government calls the spare room subsidy – after hearing "shocking" accounts of how the policy was affecting vulnerable citizens during a visit to the UK. She was disturbed by the extent of unhappiness caused by the bedroom tax, and had been struck by how heavily this policy was affecting "the most vulnerable, the most fragile, the people who are on the fringes of coping with everyday life".

During her visit, she travelled to Belfast, Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh and London, visiting council estates, food banks, homelessness crisis centres, Traveller sites and new housing association developments. "My immediate recommendation is that the bedroom tax is abolished," she said. "I was very shocked to hear how people really feel abused in their human rights by this decision and [ask] why, being so vulnerable, they should pay for the cost of the economic downturn, which was brought about by the financial crisis. People in testimonies were crying, saying: 'I have nowhere to go,' 'I will commit suicide.'"

The bedroom tax could constitute a violation of the human right to adequate housing in several ways, she said: for example, if the extra payments forced tenants to cut down on their spending on food or heating for their home. She said her conclusions should carry weight in British courts. "It depends on how much the judiciary here takes into account the international legislation. In principle they should, because the UK has signed and ratified the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights," she said, referring to the document that defines adequate housing as a human right [the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and also the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights].

Rolnik believes the UK is in the grips of a housing crisis. "What are the indicators of that crisis? Problems of affordability, not just for low-income people; middle-income people are also complaining a lot about the price of their mortgages and rent. There is the very high, and rising, cost of renting. There is overcrowding, and the impact of short-term tenancies being offered," she said. "The real housing shortage is affordable housing, and the schemes that are being proposed, like the help to buy or the mortgage to rent scheme, they will not provide affordable housing. The bulk of it won't be affordable. "

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