Bristol Green Cllr under Fire Over Bedroom Tax Evictions
Bedroom Tax Dodger | 09.09.2013 10:32
Emergency No Evictions Picket of the Council. Council House, College Green, Bristol, Tuesday 10 September at 5 pm
A Green Party Councillor is seeking to overturn Bristol's blanket no eviction policy. If this Green scabbing is succesful the decision will be used to undermne the anti-evictions movement pressurising councils around the UK by spineless councillors. Get down to the council lobby!
'Ms Debbonaire, Labour’s prospective parliamentary candidate for Bristol West, said voters would remember whether councillors backed the use of evictions for tenants who were left short.
“In answers to my questions to cabinet, Councillor Gus Hoyt [Green Party] revealed that the legal cost of evicting a tenant is £1,119 and the cost of preparing that home for a new tenant is £3,000. Yet the arrears of that tenant in one year at £13 a week would amount to £650 and at £26 a week £1,300,” she said.
“I hear that over 2,000 tenants are at risk of eviction because of bedroom tax arrears. This means the council faces a potential bill of well over £8million. A giant cost to Bristolians – how is this sustainable? Even if the numbers evicted were just 50 tenants that cost would be nearly £206,000 to the council.”
She added that Cllr Hoyt, the cabinet member in charge of housing, had contradicted a government minister’s statement that tenants would not be deemed “intentionally homeless” – and thus entitled to be rehomed by the council – if there were the victim of the benefit change.
“I challenge all of the councillors in this room today – reject the recommendations of this report, tell the mayor to stand up for Bristolians and tell the government it’s not right and we won’t do it and to scrap this unjust tax,” she said.
“If you vote today for evictions for those victims of the bedroom tax and we will remember it come election time.”'
http://www.bristol247.com/2013/09/09/bristol-councillors-urged-ditch-bedroom-tax-proposals-72288/
'Ms Debbonaire, Labour’s prospective parliamentary candidate for Bristol West, said voters would remember whether councillors backed the use of evictions for tenants who were left short.
“In answers to my questions to cabinet, Councillor Gus Hoyt [Green Party] revealed that the legal cost of evicting a tenant is £1,119 and the cost of preparing that home for a new tenant is £3,000. Yet the arrears of that tenant in one year at £13 a week would amount to £650 and at £26 a week £1,300,” she said.
“I hear that over 2,000 tenants are at risk of eviction because of bedroom tax arrears. This means the council faces a potential bill of well over £8million. A giant cost to Bristolians – how is this sustainable? Even if the numbers evicted were just 50 tenants that cost would be nearly £206,000 to the council.”
She added that Cllr Hoyt, the cabinet member in charge of housing, had contradicted a government minister’s statement that tenants would not be deemed “intentionally homeless” – and thus entitled to be rehomed by the council – if there were the victim of the benefit change.
“I challenge all of the councillors in this room today – reject the recommendations of this report, tell the mayor to stand up for Bristolians and tell the government it’s not right and we won’t do it and to scrap this unjust tax,” she said.
“If you vote today for evictions for those victims of the bedroom tax and we will remember it come election time.”'
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Bedroom Tax Dodger