Fergus Wilson is a man from Kent who just happens to be the landlord of just under a thousand properties in the County. He has come to the attention of the British Press recently because he has openly stated that he would prefer to have migrant workers as tenants over those who claim housing benefits because they have a sustainable source of income. His justification for this being that 50% of his tenants on housing benefits have defaulted on their payments to him.
All this seems to be rational thinking but what appears to me to be a really harsh is his decision to evict 200 tenants just because they are on housing benefit. The National Landlords Association says Mr Wilson is not alone with 4 from 5 (or 80%) of landlords having expressed a matual feeling.
I think the two main problems lie within the fact that of recent years, housing benefit is now paid directly to the tenant and not to the owner of the property so Mr Wilson has no way of monitoring his tenants to see if they are carelessly spending money at his expense.
Also, the rate of housing benefit has not increased proportionally to the rise in the cost of rent. Even if these tenants are not budgeting their money wisely, in some cases even with financial advice they still wouldn't be able to afford the price of rent.
I call upon the Government to address this issue in due time because we do not want to have a situation where there are parts of the country people are not able to live in. This in turn will form a sort of false segregration outcasting those with low-incomes and those claiming benefits from everyone else.
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