DPAC - The Future Crisis in Housing

The Future Crisis in Housing Posted: 31 Oct 2011 05:53 PM PDT Even leaving aside issues of accessibility we have a totally inadequate supply of social housing in the UK and for many people there is never going to be any chance of getting social housing. There were already 1.8 million households on social housing waiting lists when the Condems came to power. Since then the housing emergency is intensifying, with homeless applications up 15% and rough sleeping up 10%. In the Private Rented Sector complaints about life-threatening hazards including gas and electric hazards have risen 25%in the last 2 years yet there are few prosecutions and many people are forced to live in slum conditions. Private rents continue to rise and are unaffordable in 55% of local authorities costing over one-third of people’s take home pay. In London the average rent for a 2 bed house is £1,360 a month - more than 2 and a half times the average of anywhere else. The majority of people who get HB are not benefit claimants but people in low paid employment. Squatting and occupying buildings is likely to be made illegal and criminalised with a 12 month prison sentence possible in spite of the fact that our prisons are already overcrowded and this will make no economic sense as it will be far more expensive to keep homeless people in prison than to allow them to squat.  Already 30% of disabled people live below the poverty line and 1 in 4 families with disabled children can’t afford heating.  The Chartered Institute of Housing has calculated that the cumulative effects of the coalition’s proposals mean that by 2020 every tenants’ Housing Benefit will be too low to cover their rent.   Proposed changes to Housing Benefits from April 2011   The size criteria will be adjusted to provide for an additional bedroom for a non-resident carer ( ie not a member of your family who shares your home) where a disabled customer has an established need for overnight care. This must be claimed for and will not be awarded automatically. While this is a very small positive change it still totally fails to address the lack of an extra room for disabled children who need an extra bedroom, pensioner and other couples who need an extra room due to their medical needs, and a wide range of other disability related factors which mean disabled people need extra housing space, including the need for space for dialysis, room to store equipment, room to use a wheelchair, ground-floor and level access accommodation. The recent DWP Select committee into LHA said that these factors were posing considerable barriers to independent living and should be addressed urgently but still have not been. In essence the overall proposed changes to LHA will simply increase these barriers.  The Local Housing Allowance will be set at the 30th percentile rent in each Broad Market Rental Area, rather then the 50th percentile as before. Disabled people will only be able to afford to rent in the cheapest properties in an area, which are more than likely to be inaccessible.  This is a cut of £425 million pa.  This will also increase the difficulties disabled people face in finding suitable accommodation to live independently, increase homelessness amongst disabled people and push disabled people further into poverty, especially if DLA recipients are cut by one-fifth as planned by DWP.  The proposed changes to the 30th percentile, rather than the median rent being used to calculate LHA from October next year, will only make these matters worse than they already are and will constitute serious breaches of UNCRPD particularly article 28, article 19,and article 7. New changes to our legislation should not be allowed to contravene these convention rights.  Increased non-dependent deductions rising steeply over next 3 years resulting in a cut of £340 million pa  Changes from 2012  Under 35s – Anyone single and under 35 years of age including those who are disabled but not in receipt of middle or higher rate DLA care component will not be able to claim for more than a shared room rate. As DLA is now being scrapped we currently have no idea of the full impact of these 2 changes together.  It has been estimated that this cut will result in 11,000 disabled people being made homeless partly due to the lack of availability of rooms in multiple occupancy properties and the average shortfall of rent between a shared room rate and single room rate will be £42 per week on average. The previous reduction to 30th percentile rent rate will be cumulative to this additional cut.  This won’t apply if you’ve been in a homeless hostel before moving into Private Rented Sector accommodation, social housing  or HA tenants and some supported housing schemes.   Planned introduction of caps on HB -now postponed until 2012.  Local Housing Allowance levels will be restricted to the 4 bedroom rate. The 5 bedroom rate has been scrapped.  A new upper limit will be introduced £250 a week for a one bedroom property £290 a week for a 2 bedroom property £340 a week for a 3 bedroom property £420 a week for a 4 bedroom property  Longer term reforms  These will require primary legislation in the Universal Credit bill which is currently going through committee stage of Lords  from 2013-14 Local Housing Allowance and Housing Benefit rates will be upgraded in line with CPI ( Consumer Price Index)  rather than on the basis of local rents. CPI does not include any account being taken of housing costs so this will result in the amount of money people can get to help pay their rents being even lower. At the same time this will apply to increases in other benefit rates and an estimate I have seen is that disabled people will be £300 per month worse off because of this. Social Rented Sector There are plans to remove any security of tenure from social housing tenants and to increase rents to 80% of market values. Together with the caps on Housing Benefits this will make renting in the social housing sector  unaffordable in many higher priced areas  of the country.  From 2013 housing benefit for working age social rented sector customers will be restricted for those who are occupying a larger property than their household size would warrant. This is something that the Labour government and DWP tried to introduce in Welfare Reform bill 2007 but were forced to drop by pressure from Housing Associations. It means that if you are living in an adapted property which may have cost thousands of pounds to adapt then if you also have an extra bedroom you have no apparent need for you will only get HB paid at the one bedroom rate.  This cut will save £490 million by 2014/15. However in parts of the country there are no supplies of smaller properties available for people to move to. Universal Credit Universal Credit will lead to a cap on household levels of benefit, excluding DLA. As median income - £350 a week for a single adult and £500 for a couple. Severe Disability Premiums will be lost with nothing to replace them. An overall cut of £270 million pa  Discretionary Housing Payments Recognising the chaos their HB reforms are going to make, the sum allocated by government has increased by £10 million in 2011, and by £40 million in 2012. This will apparently give more flexibility to local authorities, but DHPs are not supposed to cover long term housing costs and have to be applied for every 13 weeks. There is no right of appeal if they are refused, although you can seek a Judicial Review. Leicester for example has now introduced a policy where they will only pay for a maximum of 13 weeks, during which time disabled people getting a DHP are harassed to move to a cheaper property, regardless of their independent living needs.    According to government figures, about 3-3,500 disabled people rent privately in central London. DPOs in London, however, have raised concerns that, as the centre of London becomes unaffordable to most disabled people, then there will be additional pressures on local councils, for example in Brent, where there is already a 10 year waiting list for re-housing as more people are forced to move. Mortgage Interest changes Changes to the amounts paid to mortgage interest for disabled claimants have been estimated to potentially lead to an additional 64,000 disabled people becoming homeless.