Housing Benefit Cuts Slammed by Sector

Government plans to dock housing benefit from the long-term unemployed have been slammed as ‘nasty’ by tenants’ groups. Landlords also warned that reforms to local housing allowance risk creating ‘benefits ghettos’. The measure to cut housing benefit by 10 per cent to people who have been on jobseekers allowance for more than a year from April 2013 was announced in Tuesday’s emergency Budget. The plan will have widespread impact as 700,000 people in the social and private rented sectors have claimed jobseekers allowance and housing benefit for a year or more. The plan, which will raise £210 million between 2013/14 and 2014/15, is part of a package of measures designed to cut the housing benefit bill by £4.225 billion between 2011/12 and 2014/15 and push more benefit claimants into work. Read the rest of this story on Inside Housing.