Cap Rents Not Benefits protest Mon15Apr - 8-10am Stratford

[marknbarrett at googlemail.com]

Facebook Event 
 
https://www.facebook.com/events/555732437791477/?fref=ts

Subject: [Benefit_Cap] Fwd: [hsg] Cap rents not benefits - protest Mon 15
 Apr, 8am-10am, Stratford

sorry for cross posting, but not everyone on this list is on the hsg one 
too.

this call out's great - please send it out to everyone who'd be 
interested - and hopefully who might come along...

ruth



-------- Original Message --------
Date: 	Sat, 6 Apr 2013 11:36:11 +0100
From: 	Jane Laporte <jane at mogg0.freeserve.co.uk>

*Cap rents not benefits - Scrap the Benefit Cap protest – Mon 15 Apr, 
8am-10am, Stratford*

The benefit cap is due to start on 15^th April in Haringey, Enfield, 
Bromley and Croydon, before being rolled out nationwide in the summer. 
These four trial boroughs were apparently chosen because one office 
processes all their benefit claims.

On the day of its introduction, we are asking opponents of the benefit 
cap from all over London to join us in an early morning protest at this 
faceless DWP hideaway in Stratford.

*Cap Rents not Benefits - Scrap the Benefit Cap*

*Monday 15^th April, 8am-10am.*

*Stratford Benefit Delivery Centre, Department for Work & Pensions, 
Jubilee House, Farthingale Walk, Stratford, E15 1AW.Just next to the 
HMRC enquiry centre, a minute’s walk from Stratford station. 
Overground/tube: Stratford*

The overall benefit cap is part of the government’s welfare reforms, 
along with the bedroom tax, changes to council tax benefit and Universal 
Credit.In Haringey alone, over 1,000 families are affected by the cap, 
facing cuts to their housing benefit and eventually eviction.

So we’ll be talking to the workers implementing the cap, the ones 
compiling names to send to local authorities, telling them whose housing 
benefit to cut. But we’ll also be speaking to some of the thousands of 
people who filter past this office in the morning rush hour and have no 
idea what happens inside.

At £500 a week for couples or people with children, the cap is meant to 
reflect the earnings of the average family.But it fails to include extra 
income from child benefit or housing benefit that a family renting in 
London would also get.

And it’s a lie that this cap is about saving money.In its calculations, 
the DWP has not taken account of the extra costs to local authorities in 
dealing with the homelessness created. Landlords all over London have 
/already/ been evicting tenants on housing benefit in anticipation of 
the cap.

We mustn’t fall for the rhetoric used by the government to describe 
claimants, which only distracts us from identifying the real scroungers: 
the fat cat bosses who pay themselves vastly inflated wages out of the 
profit they squeeze from our hard work; the rip-off landlords who raise 
rents every year, despite rock bottom mortgage costs; or the tax exiles 
who buy up mansions in our city and leave them empty most of the year, 
while families down the road are forced to “downsize” or leave London.

If the cap isn’t scrapped or landlords don’t lower their rents 
significantly, it could mean thousands of families being forced to move 
out of London, breaking up communities and support networks.

If you can’t make the protest, but think you will be affected by the 
cap, get in touch for advice and support, and to meet other people in a 
similar situation. Whatever your situation, if you want to stop the cap, 
get in touch and get organised!

*Haringey Solidarity Group - benefitcap at haringey.org.uk**- 
www.haringey.org.uk - 0845 223 5270*