In a climate of unrepentant cuts and increasing poverty, bureaucracy and discrimination for benefit claimants, one group of individuals are seemingly unscathed recipients of growing welfare payments: landlords. In the decade up to 2012/13 housing benefit payments doubled from £12bn to £24bn currently reaching the bloated heights of over £25bn. How has this area of welfare spending remained out of the spotlight in the welfare and claimant bashing trends of the last few years?
Image: capita Software
Housing benefits go entirely to landlords or housing associations. Claimants do not gain or cream some profit off the top as many politicians and media would like to insinuate. And according to Danny Dorling, author of ‘All That Is Solid’, the aim of housing benefit always was to line the pockets of landlords:
‘None of this new red-tape was the product of a left-wing created bureaucracy. The current housing benefit system was set…
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