Rushed and ill-judged policy changes, in particular evicting council house tenants involved in thr rioting, may lead to more problems
By James Gregory, Kevin Meagher and Daniel Elton
There are calls this morning for council tenants involved in the rioting to be evicted from their homes. While this is an understandable reaction to those who have rejected solidarity with the wider community, rushed and ill-judged policy changes will, in all probability, will cause more problems.
James Gregory, senior research fellow at the Fabian society writes:
” Firstly, if social housing tenants are evicted from their homes, there is no law in place to say that they will not qualify for housing benefit in the private rental sector. This, of course, is likely to be more expensive.
” To this we may say that it worth the cost if neighbours are saved from the misery of anti-social behaviour.
” But this brings us to the second problem. If we assume that rioters are indeed likely to have been anti-social neighbours (not an unreasonable assumption), we are simply transporting the problem elsewhere.
“Indeed, it is likely that the problem will move to our nascent slum private rental sector, where irresponsible landlords will do nothing whatsoever about such behaviour.
“Of course, all this assumes that it is even legally viable to evict tenants for behaviour (rioting) sometimes miles from their homes.
“Thirdly, it is difficult to see how this will not in some cases fall foul of emergency homelessness legislation. If, for example, single mothers were rioting (an odd picture but one that fits with the anecdotal evidence emerging from the riots), it is hard to see how we could evict – and not at all clear that we would have the stomach to so do.
“After all, many of the rioters are teenagers and barely adults. And more are likely to qualify for social housing in the not too distant future (how long should they be excluded for?)
“This is not, I should stress, meant to be an excuse. My larger concern is with exacerbating social (and personal) problems that predispose some people to this kind of behaviour.
“They should be punished – without leniency. But the way to do this is through the criminal justice system, not the sticks and carrots of a punitive welfare state.”
Kevin Meagher writes:
“The threat by a growing number of local authorities to evict social housing tenants convicted of rioting or looting is certainly an eye-catching sanction.
“Councils including Salford, Barking and Dagenham, Hammersmith and Fulham, Grenwich, Westminster, Nottingham, Southwark, Wansdworth and Croydon have said they will seek to implement the threat.
“Barking and Dagenham’s council leader Liam Clarke explained:
“’We will not hesitate to take appropriate legal action…[against] any local person convicted of offences relating to these disturbances and will seek to evict any of our tenants who are found guilty of such crimes.’
“Meanwhile Salford City Council leader John Merry said he would push his local Arm’s Length Management Organisation, Salix Homes, to:
“‘take the most serious action against them [tenants involved in looting] and that may involve eviction.’
“Posting a message of support on Twitter yesterday, housing minister Grant Shapps endorsed this approach, saying:
” ‘I will back social landlords who evict tenants involved in any rioting.’
“Unfortunately, as we have seen when eviction powers have been used by social landlords before, it simply relocates problem tenants rather than addressing the root causes of their behaviour.
“Often it involves transferring nuisance families and individuals into the private rented sector, costing the state more in housing benefit, dispersing anti-social behaviour and blighting areas of the private sector market.
“This idea of evicting tenants also sounds a bit like the fines that are always said to be awaiting residents who break hosepipe bans. The prospect of prosecution, however, is disproportionate to the ability of the authorities to actually enforce the threat.
“Hence few, if any, people are ever prosecuted for turning on their garden sprinklers in a drought. But at least the threat of enforcement is meant to act as a deterrence and most law-abiding people oblige. Here we have the reverse situation. The rioters and looters have already committed their crimes.
“The idea also calls into question whether the perpetrators of the disturbances are actually social housing tenants at all.
“Our televisions are full of pictures of young people and children perpetrating these crimes. Given their tender years, it is unlikely those few that are ever identified – and then successfully prosecuted – will hold tenancies themselves. More often that not the tenancy will be held by a parent.
“So would we see a lone parent bringing up three toddlers face eviction because her ten year-old son was involved in looting?
“The cost both to the innocent siblings and the public purse would be prohibitive. Moreover, the current law around eviction focuses on whether the nuisance behaviour occurs in and around the tenant’s property.
“As leading property law barrister Nicholas Grundy, Head of Chambers at Five Paper has pointed out the grounds for eviction:
“’…relates to things coming from the premises or being convicted of an offence in the vicinity of the premises. So it has to be in the vicinity. If you live in Tottenam and travel up to Enfield that won’t be in the vicinity. That’s the first problem.’
“To make good on the sabre-rattling, the government would have to change the law in this area, opening up fertile new ground for legal appeals – with the taxpayer undoubtedly left to pick up the tab.
“There is no argument that those involved in the mindless violence and larceny we have witnessed should be caught and punished, but half-baked gestures are doomed to failure. Let us see in six months time how many tenancies are actually revoked.
“As MPs gather today to discuss the events of the past few days our political leaders should eschew the temptation to reach for easy solutions to this crisis. There aren’t any.”
40 Responses to “Evicting council tenants will cause more problems”
KevinJump
RT @leftfootfwd: Evicting council tenants will cause more problems http://t.co/scocZQM
scandalousbill
Anon,
As the OP has stated, Criminal punishment focuses upon the individual and the offence committed, eviction does not, it can affect the offender’s family and dependants, who have not been charged, given any form of due process, allowed a defence, etc., but may suffer sanctions regardless of their knowledge or involvement in any offence committed. This is not the rule of law.
What is clear from the aftermath of the riots and looting is that no one particular social class, age or ethnic group was responsible. They were not all kids, they were not benefit recipients, etc. Cameron’s attempt to steer the focus of the debates on the riots toward council tenants and bad parenting, is highly inflammatory, discriminatory and not supported by the evidence which is emerging from the courts. The coalition position, as articulated during today’s debate does not provide any sort of solution, but further aggravates a terrible situation. Criminal offenders can be brought to justice without the stereotypes that have been used by Cameron, Warsi, May and the right wing press. I would even go so far as to say that the situation would have been less polarized had Cameron and cronies remained on vacation.
Incidentally, I have, in the past, lived in social housing for several years, and from my experience, the safety and well being of the residents there was given a lower priority by local authorities, and their suffering at the hand of the yobs pertained more to this form of institutionalized neglect than who happened to be their neighbour.
John Green
Your article is very inaccurate.
Not only is it possible to evict troublesome and criminal tenants from social housing, it has been happening very successfully for many years. A council leader, interviewed on BBC, explained that several problem estates within his council juristiction had been revitalised by booting out problem families in such a manner.
The fact that a small number of the scum responsible for the criminal actions we have seen this week are juveniles will not save them as criminal behaviour by ANY member of the family will result in eviction. This council leader from, I think, Nottingham is also proposing the eviction of scum living in rented property.
John Green
Rather than describing the rioters as “a dispossed urban youth with complex social problems”, I prefer to call them scum.
All societies have a layer of scum floating on the surface. The role of the police and the courts is now to skim this scum from the surface of our society and bang them up.
There are many theories as to why our society is so broken and why we have so much scum. There are the usual bleeding hearts presenting these people as victims. We have had a widely-distributed interview from that appalling man Livingstone finding numerous excuses for their actions.
We have had a layer of scum in our society for as long as anyone can remember. The reason we have so much of it slushing around these days, I am sure, is a product of the following:
f) a very large number of useless parents
g) an obsession with rights brought about by many years of misguided liberal policies
h) an absence of any sense of duty and obligation
i) an obsession with, and an overwhelming sense of envy for, fame, celebrity, bling and personal possessions
j) a belief in a lifestyle built around dropping out of school at an early age and claiming benefits for life, supplimented by crime and often drug-dealing
My solution to this societal problem is a mixture of the following:
A) demonstrate this lifestyle choice is not a good one by impossing prison sentences on the scum we collect
B) the benefit of a prison sentence is that life will become much less comfortable for each piece of scum, involving loss of employment, eviction from their home and loss of benefits paid by the state
C) for each successive conviction, scum will permanently lose a significant proportion of their benefit which can be restored only by significant and hard work in the community
D) parents are made to share the punishment that follows misbehaviour of their spawn, through naming and shameing, loss of home, loss of employment or benefit
We have spent far too long throwing money in the wrong direction and excusing scum behaviour as an inevitable result of poverty, lack of ambition and local community resources. It is interesting that, in each of the London boroughs affected by the recent riots, local community leaders have come forward to lament that years spent developing support programmes for local young people and for the unemployed have proved to be so unsuccessful.
We need very quickly to teach the scum that they are individually responsible for their actions. If they choose not to participate fully in our educational system and therefore make themselves unemployable, then they face the consequences. If they choose to rub their genitals against those of a different gender, then they are responsible for the child who may appear as a result. Money should be taken from their wages or benefits at source to pay for the welfare of that child. Should that child misbehave in the future, both parents will be held accountable, whether or not they reside with the child.
It will probably be impossible to rescue anyone who is currently swimming in the layer of scum. By concentrating the very youngest in our communities we may slowly over time drain the pond of scum.
Enough. It is time the scum faced a harsh reality.
Anon E Mouse
scandalousbill – I was brought up on Hattersley council estate until my granddad (a Labour councillor in Manchester) got things sorted for us so I do know the situation on these estates.
I also know that landlords and housing associations MUST have the rights to evict tenants that are not behaving properly and in breech of their agreements. Or what is the point of the agreement?
As for the better off, if their landlords want to evict them then I’ll go along with that as well. People should be free to choose who then do and do not keep as tenants and I do not wish to live in a totalitarian state where politicians decide these things.
I also happen to think that if people are convicted of burning someones whole life to the ground and all is left is the clothes they leap from the building in, then they can get what’s coming because it will not be as bad as the position they have put their victims in.
Not one of the three individuals who have “written” this ill informed anti working class article lives in social housing and once again we have the landed gentry old monied types like the countess toff Harriet Harman telling us how we should live whilst living in luxury herself.
To suggest that the poor on council estates should have to suffer at the hands of these anti-social yobs just because they are poor and can’t afford to move shows just how out of touch Labour has become and with only 8% of people blaming the cuts for this (which haven’t happened yet) it’s time the party woke up.
When union leaders earn in excess of £140k a year it’s no wonder they don’t get it. Being poor isn’t a choice for these people and you advocate them being poor and miserable with the feral underclass created by Labour forced on them.
Endangering lives for greed and burning 45 families out of their homes obviously isn’t bad enough for you scandalousbill. What do they have to do to be evicted? Why don’t you care about the law abiding people suffering with these thugs on their estates?