Panorama, housing benefits going to bad landlords (in Sunderland)

[LeadBelly86]

Reporter John Sweeney discovers that by one estimate housing benefit money totalling as much as £3.5bn a year is going to private landlords deemed bad or neglectful.

In his analysis, Sweeney says the result is that some of Britain's poor are now living in 21st century slums.

Joshua Dansky could well be Britain's worst slum landlord.

His is a property empire funded largely through public money that he is paid from housing benefit for the poor.

Mr Dansky, who has 140 properties in Newcastle alone, has become wealthy by exploiting Britain's critical shortage of affordable housing.

Perhaps more significant is that he is just one of a number of bad or neglectful landlords who are receiving perhaps as much as £3.5bn a year of public money through housing benefits paid to private landlords who accept poorer tenants.

While the coalition government has announced 150,000 new affordable homes will be build in Britain, cuts to social housing and the difficulty facing first time buyers when it comes to getting mortgages mean that more and more people are being forced to rent privately.

So what happens if the private landlords in question provide a terrible service? continued...http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/fr...00/9122529.stm

and http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...using_Rip_Off/

Shocking.

Saw Dansky the other day in Ashbrooke but didn't have a clue about him, but he stood out (skull cap, distinctive dress code etc) and he pops up on Panorama a couple of days later, unbelievable.

Makes you sick.