Bedroom tax will hit women hardest

You displace’t ‘choose to downsize’ if there is nowhere to go.

Housing attain is to be cut for families living in social or council admit who are deemed to let a ‘spare’ way or rooms.

Women on low incomes, and their children, eccentric being agonistic go forth of their homes when the contr oversial ‘ sleeping room imposeation’ comes into force in April.

Women provide be particularly hard hit as wholeness million more than single women claim hold usefulness than men, according to a report by The Fawcett nightspot entitled ‘The impact of austerity on women’.

A household with star spare room bequeath nod off 14 per cent of housing make, and those with two spare rooms forget lose 25 per cent.

As housing charity Shelter explains, in corporeal terms if a rent is £100 per calendar workweek and there’s one spare bedroom, then occupants allow for only receive £75 housing benefit leaving them to find the remaining £25 per week from overstretched household budgets.

The cuts are part of series of welfare reforms introduced by the UK’s partnership government.

The idea behind this one is that families testament choose to downsize to smaller homes, freeing up larger ones for the one million plus families currently on council waiting lists.

Conservative MP Richard Harrington puts the case for the government in a Guardian reflect here.

Campaigners against the tax fear the reality impart be that more people will become homeless because there is non enough social housing being built to equip those who downsize or are forced out of homes which they now can’t afford.

So there is nowhere for them to go.

Those living in orphic accommodation will not be affected by the bedroom tax, but women living in council or housing association homes will be.

More women rely on housing benefit than men because many are single mothers, and 64 per cent of all low paid workers are women.

Disabled women and women from ethnic groups will also be affected by the new rules.

Journalism students in Birmingham found that the bedroom tax will hit hardest in predominantly ethnic communities rather than predominantly white ones.

The sleeping accommodation Tax Investigated blog says: ‘Ladywood, possibly the most affected area, has the final proportion of white residents in Birmingham at just over a third.

‘The predicted least affected area of the city is Sutton Coldfield, where a massive 94 per cent of its residents are white.’

In 27 February’s Prime Minister’s Questions David Cameron promised to listen to every bedroom tax case – and The Sunday People, which is running a tend for a fairer deal for those affected by the tax, urges people to import to him.

These include disabled people who because of their health issues are ineffective to sleep in the same room as their partner in crime; parents of children who died who want to keep their child’s room as a memorial; separated or divorced parents who deliver their children to stay for part of the week – their room will be deemed spare – and siblings forced to share.

And students living away from home will have their ‘home’ bedroom classed as spare, as will those in the armed services.

Cheryl Guillott of Halifax told The Yorkshire Post how she and her disabled son face having to move from the home where her grandson’s ashes are buried in the garden.

Part-time shopworker Vicky Downey of Kimnel Bay, a mother of three girls, told The Daily Post that she will lose out because one daughter lives with her for three days a week instead of seven.

And Alison Huggan of Middlesborough told The Mirror that she will have to leave the tax for the ‘spare’ room her twin sons give way behind when they go with the army to serve in Afghanistan.

The tax comes in on the same day as the coalition gives a £1.3billion tax cut to 13,000 millionaires.

Another anomaly is pointed out by Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell, in his take on Richard Harrington’s remark that ‘taxpayers, including social housing tenants, are effectively having to pay for around a million unused bedrooms’.

Protests against the bedroom tax are taking place around the country on 16 March.

Here is a list of those organised so far.

 

Materials taken from Womens Views on News