‘My state pension was £880 – and my rent was £1,000’: how a 70-year-old man became homeless in Britain
https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jun/18/state-pension-rent-how-one-man-became-homeless-britain
Posted by BulkyAccident
‘My state pension was £880 – and my rent was £1,000’: how a 70-year-old man became homeless in Britain
https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jun/18/state-pension-rent-how-one-man-became-homeless-britain
Posted by BulkyAccident
25 Comments
Lack of council housing.
There you go, the answer in four words.
Millennials take note. For a lot of us, this is the future.
A cautionary tale for the rest to save, if possible, for retirement.
My pension does not fully cover my rent so the council pay part of it. Is this not the norm?
Thinks… Maybe it is because I live in a housing association flat and not a private landlords place🤔
Pay into your private pensions people. I’m not even banking on a state pension existing when I get there.
Just about viable with state security, but you won’t be living it up under any circumstance. Of course all this is just an example of how being poor is basically treated as a crime in the UK.
Edit; downvoter is obviously a snob living off daddy’s money.
It’s a ticking time bomb, the next 10 years will see being a common occurrence…
Anyone who thought/ thinks that the state pension was ever enough to be a sole income and didn’t save something was mistaken.
Remember that private pensions weren’t trusted in the 80s and 90s. There was scandal after scandal.
The majority of boomers who are comfortably retired, likely had a civil service, council, NHS or teaching pension.
Builders, retail, general admin staff, carers… Not so much. Just a state pension and probably modest savings.
Single working class people also struggled to get a mortgage in those days – they certainly struggled to qualify for an urban property.
Should’ve saved up and bought a house instead of spunking his money on baby cham, Betamax video tapes and tins of del monte peaches.
He worked his whole life. A lot of the time as a bus driver. Where is his pension? Why does the article make no mention of it? Why isn’t he a property owner? He had plenty of opportunity. How much does he get in the way of housing benefit?
He could have slashed his rent by 2/3rds by moving to somewhere with an abundance of housing and little work. Should the state pension and other benefits really be used to allow people to live in areas with a housing shortage. Remember any extra money for him comes out of the in pocket of the in work people he’s competing with for housing. I know I’m being callously pragmatic but we can’t pretend we can magically provide unlimited housing for everyone in the most high demand areas.
My mum is 78 and does a 40 – 60 hour week looking after people with learning difficulties as she cannot afford to live on her state pension. Sad times for a first world country.
But he would have qualified for pension credit and housing benefit! Why isn’t that in the article? (I think long term that’s going to bankrupt the country as there will be so many pensioners renting but this guy could have qualified) unless I have missed part of the story?
Sad as shit.
If all goes to hell I have a plan to retire gracefully!
I think this is one area where allowances need to be made for disabled people who are unable to work. As it stands they are only allowed £6000 in capital. How can they even think about what might happen when they reach pension age?
“Suella Braverman, tweeted: “We cannot allow our streets to be taken over by rows of tents occupied by people … living on the streets as a lifestyle choice.””
The choice being sleep in the rows of tents or just disappear where we don’t have to look at you 🤦♂️
That is what Universal Credit is for. Housing allowance and all.
No sympathy from me. Why didn’t he buy a house 50yrs ago when they cost 20p?
You will own nothing and you will never stop working.
Hang on ….. Reddit informs me regularly that these parasitic pensioners are living a life of luxury on their triple-lock pensions.
How can this be? According to gen z all pensioners are millionaires and don’t need a state pension.
I thought you could claim housing benefit/UC housing element as a pensioner.
Had he washed up in Kent he would be taken care ofm
I worked for a Local Authority for a while, and so many people said they would run to the press because we had scammed them, misled them, etc. On the rare occasions anyone actually did, they gave a very biased version of events and missed out all the parts where they ignored all our letters, phone calls, advice, and all the second, third and fourth chances we gave them.
I don’t want to put the blame on this guy, sounds like he’s in a pretty rough situation, but I would question why he didn’t get help he was definitely entitled to before it got this bad.