Less than two months into the operation of the “Bedroom Tax”, it appears that a very large proportion of social tenants hit by it are refusing to pay, often because they are simply unable.
Inside Housing magazine reports on a number of Housing Associations and Councils with a massive rate of non-payment of the rent deficits which the bedroom tax aims to compel tenants to cover.
The Riverside Housing Association in Liverpool has around half of its 6,193 affected tenants not paying.
Wakefield Council say 42% of its 3,000 affected tenants has not.
Two-thirds of the 7,350 tenants of Glasgow and Cube Housing Associations have underpaid. Some Housing Assciations are citing non-payment as a real threat to their survival.
There was a 338% increase in the number of people applying for Discretionary Housing Payments in April.
The tax is causing untold misery behind closed doors throughout the country as people decide whether to not pay and take the risk, or cut other essentials to pay the amount. A glimpse of the effect is shown by the case of Stephanie Bottrill.
The 53 year-old from Solihull committed suicide, and in the note left to her children cited the goverment as the cause of her distress. Her son Steven said: “She was fine before this Bedroom Tax. It was dreamt up in London, by people in offices and big houses. They have no idea the effect it has on people like my mum.”
Whilst we must be careful about attributing one cause to someone who decides to kill themselves, this “tax” is causing real pain to hundreds of thousands of people right now.
Ten households have raised a legal challenge in the High Court against the policy for discriminating against the disabled or against people who have suffered domestic violence.
We cannot rely on legal challenges or non-payment by individuals alone to defeat the policy. We need the labour movement as whole to fight alongside those who are not paying by kicking bailiffs off estates if necessary but also by demanding councils and housing associations re-classify rooms and make a firm commitment to refuse to evict.
A key demand is for the Labour Party to get off its knees and commit its councils to refuse to evict anyone who falls behind on payments as a result of the tax. It must also commit to abolish the tax if elected in 2015.
