Support the Crisis campaign to protect housing benefit for under 25′s

This week Crisis launched its No Going Home campaign to protect housing benefit for under-25s.

The prime minister has said that instead of claiming housing benefit, under-25s should move back in with their parents but Crisis has warned that for many this would be impossible.

Crisis said that last year ten thousand people were accepted as homeless because their parents would not or could not house them and more than a third of homeless people were aged 16-24. The charity has warned that many young people have fled violence or abuse in the family home, others have children of their own or are working where they live. In many cases parents won’t have the space to house them or will have moved away. For many young people, housing benefit is all that stands between them and street homelessness.

According to Crisis, of 18-24 year olds who claim housing benefit:

• 66,000 are working
• Most (204,000 households) have dependant children
• And 28,000 are sick or disabled

To support the No Going Home campaign, please visit the Crisis website.

Does size matter when it comes to Twitter?

@SallyBercow recently tweeted to her fifty thousand followers a link to a post of my blog. Those close to me will know how chuffed I was because in an hour or so I had more hits than I usually have in a month. The post was about the speech the Prime Minister made regarding the possible removal of housing benefit for those under 25.

It coincided with a workshop I ran on Twitter within BHT. We were looking at how BHT can increase its influence through Twitter. In preparation for this we began monitoring the number of followers the 20 or so BHT tweeters have.

Three of my colleagues saw a 50% increase in their followers over a 3 week period:

• @LizDaviesBHT had an 88% increase. Liz is really worth following as she tweets and retweets a range of really interesting things;
• @BowlerHelen had a 76% increase. Helen is an inspirational tutor in our Hastings Finding Futures Project and uses Twitter to celebrate the achievements of her learners, young men and women who many had written off;
• @BHTAdvice had a 52% increase. This account highlights what is happening in the advice world and anyone concerned about changes to welfare benefits and cuts to legal aid should follow this account.

But in preparing for the workshop I came to realise that size doesn’t matter when it comes to Twitter. It is the quality of the followers that counts. Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, follows just 5 people. If you are an economist and you are followed by her, you will have been noticed at the highest level.

It can be very flattering to be followed by several hundred or even several thousand people. But if each of them, in turn, follow several thousand people, the chances are that you are not being followed at all. I can’t imagine that two of my ‘followers’ @SallyBercow (following 3,951 people) even notices my musings on @SussexCCC nor @campbellclaret (following 5,071 people) on my fascination with southern hemisphere rugby.

It has been said that it is possible to effectively follow a maximum of 150 people on Twitter. In this respect, size DOES matter. I know that I often just skim through my Twitter feed, focusing on just a minority of those on whose tweets I pause.

In considering whether you are being successful on Twitter, do the following simple exercise: decide who are the people you most want to be engaged with on Twitter. It might by 5, 50 or 500 people. Are they following you? If they are, great, if not you are probably not being effective on Twitter. A colleague of mine who deals with the media has a list of around 12, all journalists. She doesn’t need many more followers.

What is of equal important is that she is following anyone who has an interest in the work of @BHT_Sussex and the issues impacting on our clients. Most activity on Twitter, or blogs for that matter, is reading and reflecting. If you spend at least 95% of your time reading and reflecting, you may almost be getting the right balance.

Anyone who just uses Twitter to promote their own ‘fascinating’ version of the world will not attract, nor keep, followers.

Housing Benefit and Under 25’s

In a speech later today, the Prime Minister will say that he is considering removing housing benefit from those under-25s.  This appears to be one of the most ill-thought through, headline grabbing policy announcements that I can recall.

There are some questions that demand answers:

• How can parents be obliged to take their adult children back into the home, and what happens to those young people where they can’t ‘go home’?
• What protection will there be for children and young people who have left their family home to avoid abuse and domestic violence?
• What happens in those cases where the parents have “done the right thing” by moving to smaller houses once their children have move out and there is now no spare room?
• What happens if there is no room in the parent’s home for other reasons, such as second families with children?

I have to ask why David Cameron is bringing this proposal forward now?  We are already witnessing the most profound changes to the benefit system in my lifetime.  If this is such a pressing issue, why was it not identified and enacted when all the other changes were introduced?

The BBC’s political correspondent, Vicki Young, has suggested that Mr Cameron’s speech will be seen as an attempt to reconnect with disgruntled Tory backbenchers.  I don’t know if that is true, but if there is even a hint of reality in her analysis, it ill becomes a Prime Minister to risk a huge rise in youth homelessness for internal party expediency.

This isn’t the pressing problem it is being made out to be. Those under 35 living in the private rented sector are entitled to just £77 housing benefit per week. Just 6% of those under 25 living in the private rented sector currently receive housing benefit.

92% of new claims for housing benefit are from those in work.  They are already “doing the right thing” but this measure will hit young people already in jobs.

The consequence of this proposal will be an increase in overcrowding, homelessness, begging, crime, and prostitution.