Shared Lives accommodation - UC or HB?

The LA manage a Shared Lives scheme where Shared Lives Carers provide care and support to vulnerable people in the carer’s own home, providing a community-based approach to supporting people to live their lives as independently as possible. As a result of this, the individual receiving the care would claim HB to cover the rent costs for the room occupied and the care costs are met by the LA.

The accommodation is not owned or rented by the LA, each Shared Lives Carer is effectively the landlord receiving rent therefore a query has arisen as to whether the scheme can be deemed to fall under the definition of specified accommodation to enable future clients to claim HB instead of having to migrate over to UC (we became full service for UC in June 2018).

Page 161 of the current handbook states ‘accommodation provided by a relevant body to meet your need for, and where you get, care, support or supervision’ which would suggest that HB could still apply for our Shared Lives clients but any and all advice regarding this issue would be appreciated.

A “relevant body” is defined as a county council in England, housing association, registered charity or voluntary organisation.  I suspect that your landlords would not meet any of these.  We have a similar scheme for care leavers called “when I’m ready” where the former foster carers rent a room to the care leaver.  UC is paying a housing element in these claims.