22 COMMENT THE SOCIAL NETWORK
HARD PRESSED A
fter the Lord Mayor’s show (the Housing White Paper) things can always seem a little bit flat, but that’s usually when the
Patrick Mooney is managing director at Mooney Thompson Consulting
hard work really starts. In this instance, we’ve all heard the commit-
ments to building more new homes of all tenures in the future, but in the here and now social landlords are getting on with the day to day business of trying to find accommodation for homeless families and trying to collect rent from tenants whose income is being cut (again). As many readers will know, local authorities
have already borne a heavy burden of the public expenditure cuts imposed from 2010 onwards, with some councils seeing their financial support cut by as much as a third. Other figures are equally as frightening –
according to the Local Government Association, councils are spending on average £2m a day on temporary accommodation because of a shortage of permanent housing. Add that together across the country and the
LGA says councils have spent £2.6bn in the last three years on housing people in temporary accommodation and the total spend has risen by 30 per cent since 2013. To make matters worse, this accommodation
includes some of the worst places to live and bring up children in the country. Often families will be living and sleeping in a single room, with washing and cooking facilities shared with several other families, all of whom are desperate to move into settled accommodation.
COUNCILS IN THE UK SPENDING ON AVERAGE £2M A DAY ON TEMPORARY HOUSING BECAUSE OF A SHORTAGE OF PERMANENT OPTIONS
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HARD PRESSED Over 75,000 households are currently living in temporary accommodation, including bed and breakfasts, hostels and private rented accommoda- tion – a 10 per cent increase on the same period last year and a 58 per cent increase since 2010. These are staggering statistics for the fifth largest economy in the world, but things could be about to take another turn for the worse. The latest round of welfare benefit cuts are
being rolled out with young adults (the under 35s) in the firing line, while hard pressed council managers are waiting to hear when the Homelessness Reduction Act is due to go live, adding to their responsibilities to the homeless and those in imminent danger of being made homeless. The general principle of helping unfortunate
and deserving people is not at issue. Far from it. The concern is how can the new responsibilities be discharged? Even where suitable accommoda- tion can be found, there is the small matter of how can it be afforded? Nearly two-thirds of English councils are strug-
gling to find tenancies for homeless people, a report commissioned by Crisis and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has found. Of 162 councils to respond to the survey, 64 per
cent said they are finding it increasingly difficult to house homeless young people and large families, and 85 per cent said they are struggling to help single people aged 25-34 into accommoda- tion. A majority of councils said they expected the roll-out of Universal Credit to exacerbate homelessness, mainly because of the potential impact it will have on landlords’ willingness to let to homeless people.
DIFFICULTIES Nearly half (49 per cent) said they are finding it very difficult to find private rented accommoda- tion for homeless applicants. Councils nearly unanimously (94 per cent) said they expect more difficulties in finding accommodation for homeless people aged 25-34 in the next two to three years. Welfare cuts and Local Housing Allowance
(LHA) rates falling short of rent levels in many areas were also cited as barriers to councils’ attempts to house homeless applicants. The LGA has been calling for a temporary
lifting of the Local Housing Allowance freeze, to help provide more accommodation for vulnerable families. But at the time of writing, Ministers have yet to respond positively to this request. And the people they are trying to help have
even less to live on than a few years ago, with further reductions in benefit payments on their way. Childless tenants under 35 will only be eligi- ble for housing benefit at the ‘shared accommodation’ rate, and those aged under-21 will not be eligible at all unless they fit into one of 11 exemption categories. These are grim times indeed. According to Government estimates around
1,000 young people will be affected by the cut to housing benefit for under-21s this year, rising to 11,000 by 2020/21. There is a further complication for young adults
to overcome in the way that Universal Credit operates. This requires a claimant to provide an address before benefit can be paid. If they do not have an address, then they can’t claim benefit. And until they can confirm the benefit, it will be extremely difficult to get an address. It is a chicken and egg conundrum of the most difficult form to resolve.
RESTRICTIONS Councils can claim for, and they do make, discre- tionary housing payments to help those in the most need, But even here the rules can be very difficult to comply with, and in the meantime
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