Posted 04.03.13
Government help for the most vulnerable people hit by the bedroom tax is falling so far short of what is needed to help them it will leave hundreds of thousands of disabled people struggling to make ends meet.
The fund for Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) has been given a £30 million boost this year - the Prime Minister announced that the extra money would specifically ensure that the most vulnerable people are protected from the bedroom tax cuts.
However, the mismatch between what the Government is taking away in Housing Benefit, and what the DHP can help offset has left a staggering gap of over £100 million in benefits being taken away from disabled people.
Research by the National Housing Federation found that if the £30 million of DHP funding was distributed equally among every claimant of Disability Living Allowance (DLA) hit by the tax, they would each receive just £2.51 per week - compared to the average £14 a week loss in Housing Benefit from the Bedroom Tax.
There are about 230,000 disabled people receiving DLA who will lose an average of £728 each per year in Housing Benefit. With the DHP fund amounting to just 6% of the Housing Benefit cuts made by the Bedroom Tax this year - disabled people are at the forefront of the cuts.
About 100,000 disabled people hit by the bedroom tax are living in specially adapted homes. If they do move, new homes would have to be adapted for them at a substantial cost to the public purse.
The National Housing Federation is calling on the Government to ensure disabled people receiving DLA, and other vulnerable people, are exempt from the bedroom tax before it comes into effect on 1 April 2013.
Comment
David Orr, Chief Executive of the National Housing Federation, said:
"This perverse tax is doing exactly what the Government promised they wouldn't - hitting the most vulnerable people in our society. They are being penalised for a weak housing policy that for years has failed to build enough affordable homes and reduce the housing benefit bill.
"The bedroom tax is ill-thought and unfair, as thousands of disabled people will have no choice but to cut back further on food and other expenses in order to stay in their own homes.
"The 'one-size-fits-all' approach takes no account of disabled people's adapted homes, of foster parents who need rooms to take children in, or of parents sharing custody who will lose the room for their child at weekends.
"It is also incompetent, as it will cost the nation money rather than saving it. The Government must repeal this ill-conceived policy, but at the very least - right now it must exempt disabled and other vulnerable people from these cuts."
Posted 12.03.13
The Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, announced a partial U-turn to exempt foster carers and parents of teenage armed forces personnel from the 'size criteria rules' in the Housing Benefit reforms to be introduced on 1st April.
The concessions to the widely criticised so called 'bedroom tax' came in a written ministerial statement.
The exemptions will mean that about 5,000 approved foster carers will now be exempted from the 'bedroom tax', which from April will see people in social housing 'effectively' charged for empty bedrooms. They will be allowed an additional room as long as they have fostered a child or became a registered carer in the past 12 months.
Parents whose children live at home but are away on operations with the armed forces will also not be charged for their child's "spare bedroom", as long as their offspring intend to return home.
Iain Duncan Smith also confirmed he had issued guidance to local authorities, emphasising that discretionary payments would be available to support "other priority groups" affected, including "people whose homes have had significant disability adaptations and those with long-term medical conditions that create difficulties in sharing a bedroom".
Opposition campaigners pointed out that the concessions would exempt just a small percentage of the 660,000 people affected by the 'bedroom tax'.
