Single Room Rent impact on older care leavers

We work with the majority of our care leavers until they are 21(24 if in Education), we have recently had a couple of our older ex clients come back to us because they are homeless, both seem to have been as a consequence of the single room rent rule as this is only waived for Care Leavers up to age 21.My colleagues are keen to highlight this as an issue particularly because we are moving towards extending working up to age 24 for everyone. So have been discussing contacting our local MP as a start. I have been asked to find out if any other agencies have this problem or are highlighting this with anyone, so thought this would be a good place to ask ,any advice comments etc would be helpful

Well of course the problem is about to get worse as the single (shared) room rate will shortly rise from 25-35 so you are now going to get a raft of 25 plus becoming homeless and entering into competition for shared accommodation. And yes a number of those will also be from a care background when they were younger…....

The thinking behiond the current limited protection is that care leavers required a breathing space of a few years to “prepare” for shared type accommodation, but as you say in then breaks down at 22, so you are back to inappropriate shared type of accommodation for this most vulnerable group.

I reckon the only sensible solution is to push at a national level for former care leavers to be exempt until 25/35. You can reply to ongoing social security consultation here.  http://ssac.independent.gov.uk/pdf/housing-benefit.pdf

Locall you can push for DHP to be targetted at this vulnerable group.

Good luck.