query / concern re the new unified credit / housing caps..

brightonman123

i cant make much sense of the DWP blurb, just gist seems to be they are evening out the dip in benefit reductions, when (if??) you ever get a job..

though SOME people may get JSA reduced / stopped, if they dont find something..?

nd with the social accomodation beneit & occupancy caps (thats a council house / flat, to you and me..), to encourage / support 'easier social mobility, blah blah..' -

does someone in a 2 bedroom flat (taken over from long term council tenant parents) get booted into a 1 bed place?

i mean, where will all my stuff go? i couldnt afford the removal costs, and feel like i may be forced out of what i consider 'home' (and maybe even end up going to another town??), just to make the jobless / housing figures look better in any chosen 'hotspot' area..

Hammyman

There is a chance you can get "sanctioned" once you have reached a certain period of time or made to do certain work.

Regarding the housing, the way it works is that a single person will not get paid more than the LHA rate for a one bed flat or if under 25, a shared room. Regarding the council housing, it has always been the case that a single person living in 2 bed accommodation could be relocated to single bedroomed accommodation. This is nothing new.

Jowo_2

Originally the government proposed that claimants on JSA for a year would have their housing benefit reduced by 10% but the govt have decided to drop this.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Nl1/Newsroom/Budget/Budget2010/DG_188501

The other thing they proposed in the June budget is

- from April 2013, the size of houses for working age people in the social sector will reflect family size

What the budget report actually said is

"The Government will introduce a package of reforms to Housing Benefit from April 2011 onwards. ...[including] restricting

Housing Benefit for working age claimants in the social rented sector who are occupying a larger property than their household size warrants."

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Nl1/Newsroom/Budget/Budget2010/DG_188496

I'm not aware how the govt will deal with this in specific detail but get the impression that they will change housing benefit for social housing tenants so it won't pay full HB to cover the property if there are vacant bedrooms. A social housing tenant has a lifetime secure tenancy but it doesn't actually mean the govt will pay HB for the entire property if it is underoccupied and will presumably expect the tenant to pay a top-up or to apply to downsize so it's affordable for them.

I don't believe the govt is directly making tenants move to smaller properties (I doubt that they can change the terms of a secure tenancy anhow) but I think their aim is to change the housing benefit system so that if they want to live in a place too large for their needs, the public purse isn't going to pay them full housing benefit. In other words, indirect pressure.

Jowo_2

Here is some background here - apparently a third of working age social housing tenants live in a property with unoccupied bedrooms. In future, they can expect to lose £11 for an unoccupied room.

It also looks like hundreds of thousands more people could be accommodated in social housing if tenants downsized as their households shrank. Currently a social housing landlord is obliged to accept a request for larger accommodation as the household size increases but there is no equivalent expectation that the tenant requests smaller accommodation when their household changes.

It also makes it more equal to the situation experienced in the private sector where a tenant is only paid LHA for their household size, not the size of property they want to live in.

"Cutting housing benefit for working-age tenants who underoccupy their homes will affect around a third of those living in social housing, the government has revealed.

An impact assessment from the Department for Work and Pensions estimates that limiting housing benefit payments to the number of bedrooms that a social tenant actually needs will affect 670,000 people living in social housing.

The report, released yesterday as part of the government’s Welfare Reform Bill, says most tenants only underoccupy by one bedroom, and will lose around £11 a week in 2013/14, when the change comes into play....Those with two or more bedrooms that they do not use will lose an average of £20 per week, the assessment says."

http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/housing-management/third-of-tenants-face-underoccupancy-cut/6513739.article