Housing and debt advice coalition warns government that the LHA rate freeze and imminent removal of the universal credit Covid-19 ‘uplift’ risk pushing households into poverty, debt and homelessness

Joint statement also says policies 'lack foresight' and the government should carry out 'a meaningful impact assessment' to justify them

A joint statement by a coalition of organisations representing landlords, letting agents, tenants, people facing homelessness, and debt advice services has warned the government that continuing with the freeze of local housing allowance (LHA) rates, and the imminent removal of the universal credit Covid-19 ‘uplift’, risk pushing many households into poverty, debt and homelessness.

While the coalition, that includes organisations supporting the Big Issue Ride Out Recession Alliance such as Crisis, Shelter and StepChange Debt Charity, acknowledges that the government took ‘bold and swift’ action in the wake of the pandemic to prevent a housing debt crisis - including by restoring LHA rates to the 30th percentile of market rents from April 2020 and increasing the universal credit standard allowance - it highlights that -

• the number of households in receipt of the housing element of universal credit has doubled between February 2020 and February 2021;
• more than half of these households (55 per cent) have a shortfall between the housing support they receive and the rent they have to pay; and
• where such shortfalls exist, the median amount is £100 a month.

As a result, the coalition says that rather than freezing LHA rates in cash terms and cutting universal credit by £20 a week from September/October 2021, the government should reverse the policies to support families and individuals to cover the cost of rents.

In addition, the coalition calls for the government to carry out a full assessment of the impact of both policies on the ability of renters to meet their housing costs -

‘To apply policies like these without doing any meaningful impact assessment is, we argue, lacking the necessary foresight and consideration of the impact they will have on people’s security of tenure and well-being and for many will threaten their chance of recovery.’

For more information, see Joint statement by: The Big Issue Ride Out Recession Alliance, Crisis, The Mortgage Works, Nationwide Building Society, the National Residential Landlords Association, Propertymark, StepChange Debt Charity and Shelter from crisis.org.uk