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Social housing tenants ‘will face poverty’ from benefits shake-up
Yesterday’s Observer carried a report on the government’s plans that from April 2013, tens of thousands of people living in social housing will have to find more money to pay for their accommodation or leave their homes. Tenants will have their housing benefit cut by £40 a month if they have a spare room and by £70 if they have two spare rooms.
Many housing associations warn they have a dearth of suitable homes to rehouse the near 100,000 tenants who have received letters informing them that they may have to switch to smaller properties.
“These rules are futile and unfair,” said Monica Burns, north-east manager for the National Housing Federation, which represents England’s housing associations. “Housing associations in the north-east have always been encouraged by government to build bigger homes so families could live in the same homes for life.”
Burns warned the welfare bill could rise as social housing tenants migrated to the private sector. “The government will then have to pay a higher rate of housing benefit to cover their rents for smaller homes,” Burns said. “These are the consequences of a blanket policy that failed to listen to local people.”
For the full article, click here Social housing tenants ‘will face poverty’ from benefits shake-up
Tenants will have their housing benefit cut by £40 a month if they have a spare room and by £70 if they have two spare rooms.
They presumably had an example with a rent of about £70 a week. The actual effect is to lower the eligible rent, as defined in Sch. 4 of the UC draft regs, by 14% for one or 25% for two or more surplus bedrooms.
[ Edited: 19 Jun 2012 at 01:44 pm by Gareth Morgan ]The Chartered Institute of Housing has published a new guide that aims to help housing organisations prepare for the implementation of social sector size criteria, introduced in April 2013 under the Welfare Reform Act 2012.
To see a copy of the press release, click here New CIH guide helps landlords prepare for social sector size criteria
For a pdf copy of the report, click here Making it fit: a guide to preparing for the social sector size criteria