Study 'ends myth' of housing for immigrants
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Independent Minds
Claims that immigrants are given priority access to social housing have been dismissed as a myth by the equalities watchdog.
A study for the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) found that only 1.8 per cent of social tenants had moved to the UK within the past five years.
Some 87.8 per cent were UK-born and 10 per cent foreigners who had been living in Britain for more than five years.
The study, based on previously published figures from the 2007 Labour Force Survey, was conducted by the centre-left Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) think tank.
Its report, commissioned by the EHRC, comes amid heightened concern about gains in recent elections by the British National Party (BNP).
The far-right party spread rumours in target seats that immigrants were given precedence in the queue for social housing accommodation.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown last week announced plans to allow local authorities to give priority to local people, in what was seen as an attempt to head off BNP claims.
The IPPR found no evidence of queue jumping or abuse of the system by immigrants but warned that those perceptions were widespread in certain areas.
EHRC chairman Trevor Phillips said: "We have to recognise that people's perceptions are powerful, so it's vital that social housing providers and policy makers work to foster understanding about what is really happening on the ground.
"Much of the public concern about the impact of migration on social housing has, at its heart, the failure of social housing supply to meet the demands of the population.
"The poorer the area, the longer the waiting lists, therefore the greater the tension.
"Government and social housing providers need to work with the communities they serve to address these issues."
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Comments
Another friend works in a Social Security Benefits Office in Yorkshire and she has to pay these immigrant's Landlords every month and she says that it is an order of magnitude (at least) more than 1.8%. This may be because, I understand, Trevor Phillips did not include Private Rentals (paid by SS) in his figures - which should give you some idea of the reliability of his figures!
The Housing Minister was attempting to defend his boss on the BBC Today programme just now. The poor chap had an impossible task and it showed.
I presume that you take the attitude that, if Trevor Phillips says it is 1.8%, then that is what we must believe. After all, Trevor Phillips is an honourable man!
a) I don't believe Government reports.
b) I certainly wouldn't trust Trevor Phillips as far as I could throw him.
It must only be a housing association or a private landlord that provides the accomodation - paid for by the usual route i.e. via taxpayers national insurance contributions that get drawn down in equal twelths over a year to cover the expenditure, when a lot of these taxpayers get old what will there be for them I wonder?
Also agree with the comment about baby mothers both indiginous and immigrant, if these women have three to six kids then they are (I understand) almost gauranteed appropriate housing due to childrens legislation, this is quite apart from the obvious fact that we are PAYING women to breed through the regular benefit (and housing) rules. Absolute recipe for disaster but I bet there is not a single politician in the land who will stand up and call it like it is.
1) asylum seekers are excluded from the analysis (as they do indeed have preferential access to housing through NASS).
2) large numbers of eastern european migrants are included in the analysis even though they have no access to public funds.
If both of these are corrected, then these figures show that a disproportionate amount of social housing is indeed allocated to non-EU migrants and especially to asylum seekers. Whether or not this is a good or bad thing, I leave others to judge, but the figures as they are presented are misleading.
Even if there is no bias in selecting social housing tenants, the arrival of new people on the waiting list, some of whom are sure to be more needy than some of those already on the list, can only result in some people being pushed down the list. To put it another way, some newcomers will always be placed ahead of some already on the list. It may be this effect which results in the perception of bias. The only solution is to increase the housing stock enough to eliminate the waiting list.
Ah, they say; much of the accommodation is rented from PRIVATE owners.
Really: and so who pays the rental?
Drivel.
2. You "imagine" so: on what grounds? Simply because of your personal position, you feel able to propose a general theory?
So far, I think that your antagonists have stronger evidence.
The article refers to a 'belief' that immigrants jump queues in council housing, and if we'll talk general theories, it would not surprise me one iota to find that the people holding such beliefs get them from the Sun &c., and would not in fact recognise an immigrant unless said immigrant really had very little knowledge of his or her new country, its mores and language (in which case s/he is unlikely to have been here long enough to qualify for any benefits; and while on this subject I will add that I have no issue with any related law and am perfectly happy to go without, but in case you are unaware of this, living here on a visa or a residence permit means that one invests a lot but is eligible for very little in return, national insurance included).
If we also consider that a number of 'native' English people do not accept even the much misunderstood 'third generation', grandchildren of the original immigrants who have long been English as such, then we have even more problems with the abovementioned beliefs on who it is that is getting all those houses.
Having gone through a variety of procedures for the work & residence permits I got from the UK's authorities, and the fuss I still encounter due to the amount of red tape involved with anyone without a British passport, I am finding it very, very hard to believe that anyone - let alone the badly integrated, badly skilled people from locals' nightmares - can so easily and in such great numbers bypass the obstacles and really break the law.
Born in Britain (white and educated) I am now 55 years old and I have remained a tax-paying citizen of the UK all my life. Frankly, I've yet to see an iota of social jutice, though its achievement features in every the political manifesto of every political party you might care to read.
Believe me, you don't need to be an immigrant to feel alienated from this society - and certainly not by this present government.
Good luck.
Fair point, I cannot and wouldn't argue with that. I would argue that there is not a 'great' number of assumptions in my reply above - it really is not long enough for that - and where there are I have recognised and noted them as such, but that argument would have very little to do with the original subject and is best not pursued.
Apparently the Far Right, BNP, and others are to blame for all these problems, and as nefarious as they are, stigmatising one group can create more recruits.
What the report has highlighted which may put UK born families at a disadvantage is when you read this:
"Some migrant groups, the report said, were highly dependent on social housing because their families had higher numbers of children and were more likely to be without work".
And the Local Authorities have to issue housing according to this ruling, which when read in conjunction, may be a disadvantage for the UK families who do not tend to have as many children as some immigrant sections do:
"New immigrants with the right to live in Britain have been entitled to social housing since the 70s, when waiting lists which favoured local families were abolished and replaced with systems that allocated homes on the basis of need".
"Homelessness, several children, pregnancy and poverty have since been factors that automatically push people towards the head of the queue".
When publishing reports such as this, the media, of all types, need to tell all the facts to prevent the Far Right (as the media have tagged them), from gainiing a recruiting scoop.
Hiding the facts from the public in this way is not good journalism, shows contrivance with one side and leads to lack of trust from the public when stories are published.
It is better to debate openly than to hide facts in the shadows.
The report, although commissioned by EHRC, was compiled by the IPPR. IPPR is ZaNULab favourite think tank, therefore the report is going to be as bent as a 'nine bob note'. Read the report and look for stats that show that social housing is not changing its ethnic percentages over time. Try hard but you won't find any, therefore they cannot prove about the myth of housing allocation.
How many NEW tenancies have there been altogether and what percentage of them are filled by immigrants? EHRC must think the public are all idiots and this whitewashing of statistics would point to a poor attempt to hide the large numbers of immigrants taking up a very high proportion of social housing!
What about all the young mums who are on their own, the social housing they could have had is given to others. I have read all manner of articles and news and with regard to teen and young single mums, I am shocked to see tody's attitudes to them show that to both the press and the government they are today's lepers, Jews or blacks. Todays attitudes towards our own native women and children are worse than rascist.
Fertility and NOT having abortions are today's new taboos.