Social landlords expect cuts to trigger new wave of homelessness
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Social landlords expect cuts to trigger new wave of homelessness
Report based on survey of English housing associations and councils suggests government moves to restrict benefits will result in a surge in tenant evictions
The continuing impact of the bedroom tax, together with moves to extend the benefit cap and impose further limits on housing benefit, will put further financial pressure on tenants, predicts a report by consultants Grant Thornton.
It concludes that the ability of councils and housing associations to mitigate growing arrears has been severely eroded, and increasing numbers are issuing possession orders to tenants who have fallen behind with the rent.
Grant Thornton’s survey of English housing associations and local authorities revealed that a majority had seen a rise in average rent arrears over the past two years, with over a fifth reporting a “sharp increase” in eviction notices being served.
Last week, official statistics showed that tenant evictions reached a six-year high in the first three months of 2015. Over the same period, social landlords made 27,000 possession claims – the first stage in the legal process leading to an eviction.
Councils are also feeling the strain of increased evictions in the private rented sector, with 59% reporting an increase in applications for social housing from tenants who had been ejected by private landlords.
The threat of further evictions will rise after a cut in the budget for discretionary housing payments (DHP) from £165m to £125m this year, the report says. DHP grants, which help tenants with rent shortfalls caused by welfare reform, were originally intended as a temporary measure to enable tenants to stay in their home while they got a job or arranged a move to a smaller property.
Social landlords expect cuts to trigger new wave of homelessness
Street Democracy writes:
'We hold our doors so they attack in vain,
but the dissposses can never reign,
The Tories darkness to desolate our inner peace
Our societal tolerance of this must now cease!
Tory bullies set a furious expedition of fierce hosting with frowning scorn as they devise with fanatical commitment social housing benefit cuts that do not match the 'real' agenda of living.
Like a book of hideous horrors, ravenous eyes of blue will rip apart the welfare state budget and the knock on affect will be catastrophic, a real cataclysm of hardship and homelessness.
Feeling powerless is exalted to highest when you have no base, no home and are at the mercy of the state.
Its cold, void of empathy.
It's frighteningly undignified and humilation upon the face of the mother who has no front door key, who holds her child without cover and stands in front of housing officers who follow the tail of the one in front.
An unwelcome forced intimacy of front line reception housing, is filled with love abandon policies, evil in print and administrators unwilling to disobey and put humanity first before unclean wisdom and policy.
You face a plethora of hostile dialogues of conditions and financial sanctions before you are shunted off to unsuitable temporary accommadation and for what.
How many empty properties are there, and how many unscrupulous rich landlords are there?
Always a corrupt capitalist society will put profit before people and this is no exception and it helps only the wealthy.
By Debbie Simmons-Street Democracy.
