Tenant evictions reach six-year high amid rising rents & benefit cuts in UK

This is what's happening with English residents & citizens in their own country, in UK, that not only government has cut down on the social benefit payments the public used to receive, but they are also now evicting tenants who can't pay rents, due to a hardship has fallen upon them.

Developing countries don't have the social safety net which can help residents & citizens when they fall upon hard circumstances, but it seems like that developed countries are going the same way.

If you are thinking it's just the story of one country, UK, then you are sorely mistaken. Although, you should realize that London is considered one of the financial hubs of the world, right beside New York. The cruel irony is that the number of homeless people in New York City has also doubled in the past decade (2004 - 2014).

I believe it's safe to assume that a homeless Briton looks no different from a homeless American or a homeless Pakistani or a homeless Syrian or a homeless Nigerian or a homeless Iraqi or a homeless Somali. I think you get the picture.

Who do we blame for this rising inequality in this "modern" world of 21st century? Governments, economy, financial systems, businesses, elites, corruption, immigrants, terrorism etc.?
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http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/may/14/tenant-evictions-reach-six-year-high-rising-rents-benefit-cuts

The number of tenants evicted from their homes is at a six-year high, according to new figures, as rising rents & cuts to benefits make tenancies increasingly unaffordable.

County court bailiffs in England & Wales evicted more than 11,000 families in the first 3 months of 2015, an increase of 8% on the same period last year & 51% higher than 5 years ago.

The increase in the number of tenants losing their homes means 2015 is on course to break last year’s record levels. Nearly 42,000 families were evicted from rental accommodation in 2014, the highest number since records began in 2000.

Rental prices have soared in many UK cities but wages failing to keep pace with rising costs & caps to benefits have left many poorer tenants unable to make payments.

Separate figures also ... showed almost 59,000 households have had their benefits capped in the past 2 years. Nearly half of those families were in London, where the average monthly rent for a two-bedroom home is £2,216.

Housing charities said the figures were a glaring reminder that many tenants were struggling to maintain a roof over their heads, & they called on the ... government to do more to tackle a housing crisis in the UK.

The latest repossession statistics, published by the Ministry of Justice, reveal the highest number of evictions in a single quarter since 2009, when comparable records began, with nearly 126 families forced out every day.

Between January & March, 11,307 tenants & their families were evicted by bailiffs, compared with a figure of 10,380 between October & December last year, & 10,482 in the first quarter of 2014.

The record figure comes as the number of landlord repossession claims ... also rose. Claims were up 10% on the last quarter, but at 42,226 they remained below a six-year high of 47,208 in the first quarter of 2014.

Claims by both private & social landlords were up, the figures showed, although most of the rise was explained by claims by the latter. Social landlords were behind nearly 5 times as many attempts to recover properties than private landlords, the figures showed. These landlords are typically housing associations providing homes at lower rents than the market rate, often to tenants who receive housing benefit.

In the first 3 months of the year, 64% of possession claims were made by social landlords. These 27,204 court actions came alongside 5,551 made by private landlords & 9,741 accelerated claims, which could have been by either social or private landlords.

In May 2014, when the threat of evictions reached its highest level for a decade, the National Housing Federation, which represents housing associations across England, told the Guardian the bedroom tax was causing problems for social landlords. The policy cuts the amount of housing benefit paid to social housing tenants whose homes are deemed too large for their requirements. Benefit sanctions were also thought to be causing problems.

But many housing associations, particularly in London & the south-east, have turned out tenants as they have sought to redevelop generations-old estates to take advantage of the big rise in property values. This has in turn led to an increase in the number of grassroots campaigns to oppose evictions, such as the Focus E15 mothers.

The MoJ figures came on the same day as the Department for Work & Pensions revealed that 58,690 households across the UK had their benefits capped to a maximum of £26,000 a year since April 2013. Londoners were the worst affected, with 26,636 families facing a cut in benefits over the period to February 2015, followed by 5,953 in the rest of the south-east.

DWP proposals to meet the Conservatives’ pledge to cut £12bn from the welfare budget, in documents leaked to the Guardian last week, included barring under-25s from claiming housing benefit, increasing the bedroom tax on certain categories of tenants, limiting welfare payments by family size & freezing welfare benefits at current levels.

Responding to the eviction statistics, Campbell Robb, chief executive of Shelter, said: “Today’s figures are a glaring reminder that sky-high housing costs & welfare cuts are leaving thousands of people battling to keep a roof over their heads.

“Every day at Shelter we see the devastating impact of a housing market at boiling point, with the cost of renting so high that many families are living in fear that just one thing like losing their job or becoming ill could leave them with the bailiffs knocking at the door.

“The new government must make sure people aren’t left to fall through the cracks & hurtling towards homelessness by preserving, if not strengthening, the frayed housing safety net to protect ordinary families desperately struggling to make ends meet.”

Betsy Dillner, director of the campaign group Generation Rent, said: “These record eviction figures & signs that they are accelerating are a stark reminder of the housing crisis that the government must urgently start taking seriously now they’re back in power.

“Whether it’s an inability to pay expensive rents or a landlord’s desire to take back their property, the fact that more than 40,000 families were forced out of their homes last year is a symptom of the government’s failure to create a sustainable housing market.”

The housing minister, Brandon Lewis, defended the government’s performance, pointing out that mortgage repossessions had fallen drastically, keeping owner-occupiers in their “hard-earned homes”.

He said: “Mortgage repossessions continue to fall at 56% lower than this time last year, & the lowest annual figure since the series began in 1987. Meanwhile, numbers of county court mortgage possession claims continue to fall to the lowest quarterly number since records began. This is thanks to our work to tackle the deficit & keep interest rates low, helping more families to stay in their hard earned homes.

“There are strong protections in place to guard families against the threat of homelessness. We increased spending to prevent homelessness, with over £500m made available to help the most vulnerable in society & ensure we don’t return to the bad old days when homelessness in England was nearly double what it is today.”

Have police departments across the US declared war on black people?

A great opinion piece. Simply fantastic. Left me speechless. Some points in it were similar to what I've been saying all along in my blog posts (for example, I've always said that slavery has not ended but immigration in the developed world is a form of slavery when migrants are considered second-class citizens, & regardless of how much US & the developed world lectures the developing world on human rights abuses, the developed world itself has a far worse continuing record in human rights abuses). A must-read piece.

Only thing I will add here is that although, this opinion piece is focused on African-Americans, I will add all minorities in it; be it South Asians or Latinos. Any & all minority, which is "coloured", is very adversely affected by North American racism on a daily basis. If you see there that I mentioned "North American," because racism is as much in US as in Canada. We, Canadians, may think there's no or far less racism in Canada than US, but ask any minority in Canada how they are faring in Canadian society, & they will tell you how racism has affected them.

A great line from the piece: "Rather than the land of the free, the United States of America is the land of cruelty & barbarity, a corporate dictatorship under which the poor & dispossessed are locked out of society, denied healthcare, housing, education, & life chances compatible with a humane system of government & economy."
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http://www.rt.com/op-edge/255829-police-brutality-black-us-rights/

Organizers from the group, Ferguson Action, declared recently that, “The war on Black people in Baltimore is the same war on Black people across America. Decades of poverty, unemployment, under-funded schools & police terrorism have reached a boiling point in Baltimore & cities around the country."
 
The scenes of civil unrest in Baltimore over the death of Freddie Gray – the latest in an alarming number of young black man to end up dead at the hands of the police or while in police custody – broke with a recent pattern of non-violent protest & attempts to gain justice & redress through the system. Despite 6 of the cops involved in the Freddie Gray case being charged with Gray’s homicide, it remains to be seen whether the unrest in Baltimore is a one-off event or a deepening of a developing crisis that appears to have no end in sight.
 
According to figures compiled by the Free Thought Project – a US justice advocacy group – 136 people had been killed by the police across the country. It’s a figure that makes sober reading when we break it down into 1 victim every 8 hours, or 3 per day. No other industrialized nation compares in this regard, highlighting the extent to which social cohesion in a country that extends itself in lecturing other nations around the world on human rights is near non-existent.
 
That said, those included in the aforementioned number of victims of police violence are not only black people, & it is a fact that more white people have been killed by the police than black, until of course we break that statistic down to factor in the proportion of black victims from the population as a whole.
 
It would be a mistake to put this crisis down to a few rogue & racist cops. It runs much deeper than that, exposing the ugly truth of a society that operates according to the maxim of all against all. In other words, the culture of racism & brutality that pervades increasingly militarized police departments is a symptom of the foundation of injustice upon which the nation & its institutions rest. Rather than the land of the free, the United States of America is the land of cruelty & barbarity, a corporate dictatorship under which the poor & dispossessed are locked out of society, denied healthcare, housing, education, & life chances compatible with a humane system of government & economy.
 
The corollary to this is a male prison population of over 2 million that is disproportionately black, making the US, a country that makes up just 5% of the entire world's population, home to a quarter of the entire world’s prison population. This in itself is a withering indictment of a nation that extends itself in claiming exceptionalism based on its self-appointed status as the land of the free. This view is based on a belief that the majority of crimes are a product of poverty, alienation, & social exclusion. The black American novelist, Ralph Ellison, in his most famous novel – ‘Invisible Man’ – opines that, “Crime is an act of unconscious rebellion.”

In the US in 2015 there is much to rebel about.
 
I saw it for myself during a recent visit to Los Angeles, a city where the sheer number of homeless human beings is simply staggering. Everywhere I went I came across them shuffling up & down the street mumbling to themselves, carrying their earthly belongings in plastic bags or, if they’re lucky, pushing them in a shopping kart.
 
This huge colony of homeless people exists in the entertainment capital of the world, home to Hollywood, where the mythology of the American dream projects the lie that poverty & social exclusion are products of individual failure rather than systemic failure, while material wealth & success is a measure of human worth & moral rectitude. It is of course a lie, one that has succeeded in acting as a smokescreen to conceal the widening & deepening cracks in the nation's foundations.
 
Those suffering under the weight of this system should not expect to receive any succor from Washington anytime soon.
 
On the contrary, here resides a political culture & political class slavishly devoted to the rights, interests, & advancement of corporations & their very rich executives, shareholders, & investors – i.e. the rich. The by-product of this culture has been the normalization of social & economic injustice, which as mentioned is the foundation of a foreign policy of war, military intervention, & the blithe disregard for international law & national sovereignty as & when those aforementioned corporate interests dictate.
 
Some may question the validity of linking US foreign policy to the state of its society at home, but they'd be wrong. Both are inextricably linked, forging a circular relationship of injustice, violence, leading inexorably to atomization & crises. Malcolm X put it best when he said, “You can’t understand what’s going on in Mississippi if you don’t understand what’s going on in the Congo.”

In the US class & race constitute two sides of the same coin. Black people make up around 13% of the population, which translates to just over 30 million people, the majority of whom can trace their roots in the country to slavery, with the argument gaining traction that the plantation still exists for young black males today in the shape of a vast network of Federal & State correctional facilities.
 
No justice, no peace & black lives matter are the clarion calls of a movement that has emerged in response to a wave of violence committed by police departments viewed increasingly as forces of occupation rather than law & order.
 
Who will guard the guardians?

Burma's rush for economic growth leaves its villagers homeless & jobless

Isn't it ironic that as more & more wealth is being created around the world, more & more people are suffering?

Be it Myanmar, Cuba or Iran (& one day, most likely, North Korea), there is such a hurry to open up these countries for foreign investments. As soon as these countries open up, national leaders (political & business elites) benefit greatly with the huge pouring of money from foreign lands, but poor of the country suffer the most. So what's the point of this development when the most vulnerable of the country suffer?

The most common reason is given then is providing jobs. That's a funny answer, since the jobs are the one thing, which are not created. Foreign companies are businesses, after all. They will still look for the cost & benefit. They are still responsible for one thing & one thing only; increasing their net incomes. They will still look for paying a minimum wage (as low as possible ... perhaps, nothing) to manufacture products for the worldwide markets & all the profits go into the pockets of the business elites.

As I have said in another post, money is the new "religion". It requires no ethics or morals. It requires no sense of any humanity. It requires ruthlessness & treating another human with such disdain that even pet animals are treated far better than another human.

And then, people wonder, rather foolishly or perhaps, naively, why is there so much pain & suffering in the world?

No God / Allah / Yahweh / Waheguru / Brahman created this pain & suffering. We, humans, ourselves, created this pain & suffering.
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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/burmas-rush-for-economic-growth-leaves-its-villagers-homeless-and-jobless-10170113.html

Less than an hour south of Rangoon, Burma’s bustling commercial capital, Aye Khin Win sits cross-legged in the middle his small, makeshift house on the edge of a vast construction site. Sipping a cup of traditional tea, the 29-year-old farmer is asking how he & hundreds of neighbours have ended up impoverished & without hope in the midst of his country’s historic economic transformation.
 
Mr Win grew up just a few kilometres from where he is sitting. But last year he was evicted in the name of development, resettled after his family’s plot became prime real estate & part of a flagship project part-financed by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) that coordinates developmental projects for the Japanese government. The Thilawa Special Economic Zone, which has taken over the land Mr Win & his neighbours used to farm, has been billed as a key pillar of the country “big bang” economic transformation & a project that could create tens of thousands of jobs. Dozens of foreign corporations have already signed up to open factories here.
 
But for Mr Win it has been nothing short of a disaster. “All we have ever done is farming. And now we have no land,” he says. “We have no hope, only despair.”

The Burmese government has offered the farmers compensation for the loss of their land, but many are still unclear how much, & whether it will be enough.

“I can’t even sleep at night, because of the stress,” adds his neighbour, Daw Win. The 56-year-old said she used to grow fruits & raise livestock, but now lives “day to day, worrying about meals. I have a lot of stress.”

The villagers’ plight is not unique in Burma, where a clamour to reintegrate the country into the global economy has created what some call a “two-speed” transformation. While there has been a historic rush by foreign investors to set up shop in the country, increasingly in cooperation with aid agencies & NGOs, there is growing concern that Burma’s economic metamorphosis has far outpaced its transition to democracy. Local activists say it is difficult to oppose the economic programme in any respect, as many remain fearful of the government.
 
The attraction of Burma for big business is not hard to understand. The country, one of south-east Asia’s poorest, is the ultimate “frontier market”. It sits between India & China, the world’s two most populous countries, & is rich in natural resources such as oil & gas, as well as precious stones such as jade.

“Everyone wants to have an influence & get in, in terms of business. Whether it’s China or the UK or the US, I think everybody is looking at opportunities,” says Keith Win, founder of the Myanmar-British Business Association, set up to help British firms move into the country. Foreign investment in Burma reportedly rose to a record high in 2014-2015, reaching $8bn (£5.47bn).
 
The Burmese government, for its part, is rushing through dozens of new laws & programmes to make the country more “attractive” to foreign capital. Aid money & agencies have also flooded in, announcing enormous spending plans. But in a report last month, Global Witness warned that new investment flows, in the context of a repressive political system, risk “fuelling human rights abuses”.

One local aid worker, who is supporting the farmers displaced by the new Thilawa economic zone but did not want to be named, said there is a sense of fear.

“The villagers feel they cannot go against the government,” he said.
 
Some are concerned, too, about the ideology guiding the “transformation”. In addition to supporting the Burmese government’s market-based reforms, the World Bank’s private-sector arm has invested millions in luxury real-estate & hotel projects.
 
One investment is in the Shangri-La, a five-star hotel in downtown Yangon, where the buffet costs $40, more than the average Burmese citizen will earn in a week.
 
Like the farmers at Thilawa, the Shangri-La’s expansion is also displacing people who work in the area. One woman, a street hawker who also did not want to be named, said she had sold coffee in this spot for 7 years. “I can make a living here & support my family. But I will have to move when the construction is over,” she said. “I don’t have any idea of where to go.”

When questioned, the World Bank says such investment is vital for Burma. “It’s not about poverty eradication, it’s about creating jobs, it’s about shared prosperity,” said Vikram Kumar, the bank’s top investment official in the country.
 
Back at Thilawa, U Mya Hlaing believes his home will soon be bulldozed. The 69-year-old insists he is not against the Thilawa project, but says that too many locals are suffering as a result of it.

“It’s true that it is good for the development of the country,” he said, “but the people are suffering.”

Matt Kennard & Claire Provost are fellows at the Centre for Investigative Journalism. Travel funding for this article was provided by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Kennard’s new book The Racket is out this week.