Families hit by benefit caps face being denied social housing
Neil Puffett
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Government benefit caps are prompting housing associations to consider not taking on struggling families because they may be unable to pay rent, it has been claimed.
Speaking at a fringe meeting on welfare reform at the Labour conference in Brighton, Christopher Smith, regional operations director of housing association Circle, said increasing numbers of households are being affected by government-imposed caps.
He said that at Circle around 25 per cent of those affected were part-paying their rent because they could not afford the full amount.
A further 25 per cent were not paying any rent, he added, leaving housing associations out of pocket.
He said that although work is being done to support families through help and advice, the situation could result in housing associations being less likely to house families who rely most heavily on benefits.
“There is much talk about housing associations starting to take a risk-based approach to taking on new tenants, which, in housing language, means starting to assess dependency on welfare to balance the risk of non-payment,” he said.
A delegate at the meeting, leader of Camden Council, Sarah Haywood, said local authorities are facing similar financial burdens.
She said it was unlikely her authority would evict anyone for falling behind on their rent before 2015 because underpayments were not likely to rise above the level required for eviction action by that point.
“We estimate we could lose £2million each year as a result,” she said.
“If you take that across other local authorities it is an awful lot of money.”
Shadow employment minister Stephen Timms, said a future Labour government would look “sympathetically and carefully" at the position housing associations and local authorities find themselves in post-2015.
“I can’t say there will be a few billion to solve this problem because that is highly unlikely to be the case,” he said.
He added that changes to the benefit system will continue from 2015 should Labour be in power, but confirmed that the government’s so-called “bedroom tax” on under-occupied homes will be scrapped.
“From what local authorities have said, rent arrears are significantly growing as the bedroom tax is taking effect.
“People are living in fear of the bedroom tax, they just don’t know if they are going to keep their home or not.”
