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Showing posts from September, 2013

The UN Investigator, the "Bedroom Tax", and an Aggressive, Hostile Reaction.

Recently, UN special rapporteur Raquel Rolnik came to Britain to investigate the so-called "bedroom tax", the controversial government policy that sees people facing a reduction in their housing benefit for having "spare" rooms. Rolnik had five years experience of carrying out housing investigations in countries such as the U.S., Croatia, Argentina, Israel, Rwanda, Palestine, Kazakhstan, Indonesia, Israel and Algeria, and the conclusions she came to about the situation in Britain were, to my mind at least, not that surprising. She observed that the "bedroom tax" is causing great hardship and distress to some of the most vulnerable in British society. Some people she spoke to were reduced to tears by the situation they found themselves in, while others spoke of even contemplating suicide due to having nowhere to downsize to because of a lack of smaller housing. Rolnik stated that the policy could, then, form a possible violation of human rights and Britain