“Housing First” tenancies/specified accommodation query

We have a number of units recently built with funding from the Rough Sleeping Accommodation Programme (RSAP). They are based on the “Housing First” model of ending homelessness. “Intensive support” is provided by a local Housing Support Organisation, although it is not compulsory for tenants to engage with the support and it is not a requirement of their tenancy agreement either. They are affordable rents with no service charges and tenants are given an assured shorthold tenancy agreement. All the tenants are on UC with housing elements in payment. However, we have now been told that these units should be classified as supported exempt accommodation and therefore covered by housing benefit instead. The local authority have said a claim would need to be made before determining whether the accommodation meets the definition of supported exempt accommodation, but obviously we don’t want to make unnecessary HB claims and mess around with people’s UC if we don’t have to. My initial thought was that it wouldn’t meet the definition because if one of the tenants was to move on, in theory their support could follow with them, meaning it would be considered as floating support? And also, if a tenant is not actually engaging with their support worker, then the “care, support or supervision” couldn’t be deemed as sufficient? I don’t know enough about this though and would be grateful if anyone has any thoughts or experience they could share?

No easy shortcut in this type of case: where the support needs of the individuals vary then it has to be a case-by-case decision as to whether, and if so for how long, the claimant occupies specified accommodation.

It won’t be exempt accommodation if the support provider is not the landlord and is funded separately, but it might be what local authorities call “managed” accommodation where the claimant was “admitted” into the accommodation in order to meet a need for care, support or supervision.  Whether floating support can satisfy this definition will depend on whether the package would have been available if the claimant had not taken that particular tenancy in the first place - whether the support is now portable if the tenant were to move is a red herring I think, the test is the link between the accommodation and the support package at the point of admission (i.e. the start of the tenancy).

Thanks hbanorak for your reply. In most cases, for example our temporary accommodation and refuges, its clear that it’s specified accommodation and that it should be HB. But in this case is it possible that some tenants in this building could be deemed to be occupying specified accommodation and others not, depending on the level of care support and supervision they actually receive?
Another thing is that since these tenants have been living there for several months and claiming UC housing costs, if they now claim and are awarded HB, presumably they would then have overpayments of UC housing cost elements? And all UC overpayments are recoverable?

Yes, you can have some tenants on HB and some on UC housing costs - it is an individual decision so specified “accommodation” is a slightly misleading label.

The sensible way to change the approach would be to phase it in as new service users join and leave existing benefit decisions as they are.  Anyone who is going to be claiming UC for living costs in any case can put in an HB claim and also reserve their position on the UC journal by saying they might be needing a housing element depending on the outcome of the HB claim, so please treat the message as putting down a marker in terms of time limits to revise/supersede.

That’s great, thank you.