Call to exempt care leavers from housing benefit cap

The cap on housing benefit will come into force for those in social housing from April 2018 with a decision on whether this will also apply this to those in supported housing expected next month.

But the Care Leavers' Association is calling on ministers to ensure care leavers in such accommodation are exempt. Failure to do so could leave them at serious risk of homelessness, the charity warns.

Carrie Wilson, the association's young people's project co-ordinator, said: "Without the additional support when first leaving the care system, care leavers are at high risk of failing to support themselves, and ending up homeless.

"Generally supported housing requires a higher cost, but this is because it comes with the additional support. Supported housing provides the training wheels and flexibility that a young person from a care background needs. If we put caps on the benefits to apply for this housing, we are requesting that a child of the state, whose corporate parent is the government, pay for their own care.

"They do not have additional support of family and friends, to help and teach them the skills of independent living, so they must rely on supported housing to gain these skills."

The Local Government Association (LGA) is also calling on the government to exclude all supported housing tenants from the cap. As well as young people leaving care this also includes families fleeing domestic violence and those with learning disabilities.

The LGA warns that such a cap would lead to an increase in homelessness among some of society's most vulnerable people.

Izzi Seccombe, LGA community wellbeing spokeswoman, adds that a benefit cap on supporting housing tenants could lead to the closure of some schemes, "leaving new tenants with nowhere to live".

She says: "This will heap huge pressures onto councils who are already struggling to cope  and fund demand for housing and social care."

There are already restrictions in place on how much housing benefit young people can claim. Single people under the age of 35 renting privately can only get housing benefit for a single room in a shared house or for a one bedroom self-contained home.

Currently, this does not apply for those in council or housing association properties.

The shared accommodation rate does not apply to care leavers until their 22nd birthday.