Increasing Housing Benefit By Inflation ‘Not Enough’ To Fight Rising Poverty

Crisis warns increasing housing benefit by inflation won’t be enough to fight rising poverty. Government is expected to announce an end to the freeze on benefits by agreeing to increase income-related benefits by inflation. Research has also revealed almost four in 10 households that seek debt advice and receive benefits, including housing benefit, would still not have enough money to cover their costs by 2024 – even if these rises were to continue in years to come. Read more on 24housing.

https://www.24housing.co.uk/news/increasing-housing-benefit-by-inflation-not-enough-to-fight-rising-poverty/

Single Parents Have To Work Seven Hours A Week More To Stay Out Of Poverty

Single parents have to work seven hours more each week than they did 10 years ago to stay above the poverty line due to the effect of benefit cuts, a new report exploring in-work poverty has found. The report, published by the Resolution Foundation, found that poverty rates fall from 35% to 18% when people move into work – but even sustained employment does not eliminate in-work poverty for many households. Almost seven in 10 working-age adults living in poverty today are either working themselves or living in a household where someone else does, up from fewer than five in 10 two decades ago. Read more on Inside Housing.

https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/benefit-cuts-mean-single-parents-have-to-work-seven-hours-a-week-more-to-stay-out-of-poverty-report-finds-64931

Hundreds Of Thousands To Face Homelessness In Retirement Without Social Housing Boost

Hundreds of thousands of people could be facing homelessness in their retirement in the coming decades due to the rising costs of renting in the UK and the lack of affordable housing, a new report has revealed. A report carried out for the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Housing and Care for Older People found that the rise in unaffordable rents for older people could cause a surge in pension poverty over the next 20 years. Download the report from the APPG website.

https://omghcontent.affino.com/AcuCustom/Sitename/DAM/124/All_Parliamentary_Report.pdf

‘Rip-Off Rents’ Forcing Families Into Poverty, Warns Labour

Labour has condemned “rip-off rents” it says are driving more families into poverty. It comes after figures revealed a 150% increase in the number of youngsters living in severe poverty in the private rented sector. There were 50,000 children recorded as falling into this category over the period 2015-16 to 2017-18, Scottish Government data shows, up from 20,000 a decade before. Households are classed as being in severe poverty if they have less than 50% of the UK median income to live on, after housing costs have been met. Read more on the Express & Star website.

https://www.expressandstar.com/news/uk-news/2019/04/10/rip-off-rents-forcing-families-into-poverty-warns-labour/

Housing Crisis Drives More Than 1m Private Tenants Deeper Into Poverty

More than a million vulnerable people on low incomes are being driven deeper into poverty after being shunted into the private rental sector due to an acute shortage of social accommodation. A report commissioned by the Nationwide Foundation, an independent charity, says that the shortfall in social housing has been met by a doubling in size of the private rented sector in the past 25 years. But this has forced more households, many on benefits with dependent children or a disabled family member, to pay significantly more for unsuitable housing. Download the report from the University of York website.

https://www.york.ac.uk/media/news-and-events/pressreleases/2018/the-evolving-private-rented-sector.pdf

IFS: Rising Affordable Rents Have Driven Increase In Poverty

Rising affordable rents have been “a key driver” in a rise in relative poverty in the UK over recent years, a report from the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) has found. Average housing costs for low-income families with children, it found, have risen four times faster than for middle-income families. The report added that “a key driver” of this change has been the recent increases in what it called “social rents” but which the researchers clarified meant “rents paid by households that live in council housing or housing provided by a housing association”. Read more on the IFS website.

https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/13075

Plea For ‘Full Scale Rescue’ Of Universal Credit In Upcoming Budget

Universal Credit (UC) needs a “full scale rescue mission” from the upcoming budget before it plunges hundreds of thousands of claimants into poverty. The latest study into the ill-fated – even toxic – reform shows the potential for a “colossal failure” of public policy if UC rolls out little more than desperation and destitution, a new study says. Figures cited in the study by the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) and the Institute for Public Policy Research show the ‘flagship’ reform is sinking as its system for benefiting families for taking on more work had effectively been broken by austerity. Download their report– Austerity Generation – from the CPAG website.

Benefit Cap Plunging Private Renters Into Poverty

When the overall household benefit cap was introduced in 2013, it limited the total amount of benefits that a household working less than 16 hours per week could claim at £26,000 a year. It’s now at £20,000 a year outside of London, or £23,000 in the capital. An analysis on the impact of the lower cap on private renting families paints a pretty bleak picture: in more than half of England the cap means that, after paying rent, a family with two children living in a small two-bed home would have less than £8 per person per day to cover all their essentials like food and bills. This would leave them at least £100 a week under the UK poverty line. Read more on the New Statesman website.

Growth Of Private Sector Renting And Poverty 'Closely Linked'

Is the story about poverty and housing now dominated by the problems of the private rented sector? The number of people living in poverty in the private rented sector has doubled in the past decade. Furthermore, most people in poverty in the private rented sector and owner occupation are in working families. The key statistics are: in 2014/15, the latest for which official poverty statistics are available, there were 4.5m people in poverty living in each of the three housing tenures, namely, the private rented sector, the social rented sector and owner occupation. Our 2016 poverty report showed that far more low income households in the private rented sector face what could reasonably be called “high” housing costs. Read more on the CIH website.

Benefit Cap Will Hit 116,000 Of Poorest Families

More than 116,000 of the poorest households in the UK will be hit by the extended benefit cap, putting many at risk of homelessness. Nearly 320,000 children live in households likely to be affected by the cap introduced from 7 November. In some cases families will lose up to £115 a week, pushing them into deeper poverty. The cap rollout, which will be completed by the end of January 2017, limits total household benefits to £23,000 (£442 a week) in London and £20,000 outside the capital (£385 a week). Unlike the benefit cap introduced in 2013, which mainly hit households in high-rent areas such as London, the extended cap will have an impact on families in all areas of the country. Read more on the Guardian website.

Housing Crisis 'Single Most Important Driver of Poverty,'

UK government proposals to manage the housing crisis through rent controls are doomed to fail, according to a critical new report by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA). In the UK, tenants are saddled with rents on average almost 50% higher than those in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and France. British politicians across the political spectrum agree that the UK is in the grips of a serious housing crisis. The average private sector rent in London has reached 62% of average income. And even across the rest of the UK, renters are spending nearly 20% more of their incomes on rent payments than their European counterparts. Put simply, housing in the UK, and renting in particular, is the most expensive in Europe. Read the report on the IEA website.

Poverty After Housing Costs By Housing Tenure

Since 2002/03 the number in poverty in all but owned with mortgage tenure types has decreased. While the proportion of those in poverty after housing costs in the social rented sector fell by 7.5 percentage points between 2002/03 to 2014/15 - the largest fall across all tenure types – the poverty rate in the social rented sector remains higher than any other tenure type. The proportion of those in poverty in the private rented sector is 36%, a decrease of 2.5 percentage points. Among those owning their properties outright, the proportion of those in poverty fell by 5.6 percentage points to 11%, while the figures for those owning a property with a mortgage remained unchanged. Read more on the Joseph Rowntree Foundation website.

Cameron Is Refusing EU Funds To Help Homeless

Green mayoral candidate Sian Berry has accused David Cameron of “inhumanity” for refusing to use EU funds to help homeless people in London.  Ms Berry used her party’s spring conference speech to attack the Prime Minister’s decision not to draw down funds from a £2.5 billion pot that could help destitute migrants. Campaigners believe the Government should use the Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived which helps member countries provide material assistance to the most deprived. She told supporters: “David Cameron actually opted the UK out of this scheme in 2013, and has refused to apply again despite pleas from poverty campaigners across the country.” Read more on the Evening Standard website.

Bedroom Tax: Three In Four Affected Have Cut Back On Food

Three-quarters of people affected by the bedroom tax say they have had to cut back on food, an independent evaluation published by the DWP has found. The research found that 46% said they had cut back on heating, 33% on travel and 42% on leisure. Among a control group of tenants unaffected by the bedroom tax, far fewer – 56% – said they were cutting back on food because of benefit changes. The study found landlords were very concerned that some tenants were “in severe poverty and unable to pay the shortfall”. The report said 78% of claimants who were still affected by the bedroom tax after two years of the policy were regularly running out of money by the end of the week or month. They tended to pay the rent by using up savings, borrowing from family or friends or accruing debt. Read more on the Guardian website.

Research To Examine Impact Of The ‘Bedroom Tax’ On Children And Their Education

In the first piece of research to examine the impact of the controversial welfare policy on children and their education, the University of Manchester found that the introduction of the so-called ‘bedroom tax’, alongside other cuts in benefits, was having an adverse effect on pupils’ ability to learn and concentrate, with the emotional distress caused by poverty taking its toll on schoolwork. It also found that forcing children to share bedrooms – required under the government changes which reduce housing benefit for those judged to have ‘spare rooms’- was having a negative impact on schooling by leaving youngsters without a quiet place for homework or undisturbed sleep. It also made afterschool and extra-curricular activities or playdates with friends unaffordable to some parents. Download the report from the University of Manchester website.

The Housing Market Isn’t Helping People to Make Ends Meet

In recent years there has been a vast increase in low-paid, part time and insecure work, which means that getting a job does not necessarily mean getting out of poverty. These changes have had an impact on housing, with the number of Housing Benefit claimants in work doubling between 2009 and 2014. But housing isn’t helping people cope with the changed labour market. Paying housing costs pushes three million people into poverty every year and the number of people in poverty in the private rented sector, the most expensive form of housing, has doubled in the last decade. Traditionally, social housing has played an important role in reducing the degree of poverty experienced by low-income groups, but in recent years things have changed. Rents for most new lettings are now linked directly to the dysfunctional private rented housing market this group can’t afford to access.  Read more on the Joseph Rowntree Foundation website.

Tories Must Not Look Like We Want To Punish People on Benefits, Says IDS

Conservatives must show they are not driven by a desire to 'punish' people on benefits, Iain Duncan Smith has warned.  The Work and Pensions Secretary used a speech in Washington to warn that for too long his party has addressed the poor with 'fingers wagging' instead of offering them 'hope'. He insisted the Tory pitch to voters has to be about more than tax, immigration and crime to show they are driven by 'fairness, opportunity, and compassion'.  He said: 'Historically, perhaps our main contribution to the subject was that whenever Conservative politicians did speak about poverty, they did so with fingers wagging and harsh punitive language.” Read more on the Daily Mail website.

UK Suffers 10-Year Slide As 13 Million Live In Poverty

The UK has slipped into a mire of poverty, joblessness, insecure work and private rented sector (PRS) housing over the last 10 years. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation's (JRF) 'Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion' report shows that the coalition's alleged recovery of the UK's economy has left 13 million living in poverty - and half of all those living in poverty are in a working family. Though there has been a big fall in the number of over 75s living in poverty, the number of adults under 25 living in poverty has soared. Compared to 10 years ago, many more of those in poverty are now living in the PRS. The report highlights the way the housing market has had a negative impact on people in poverty.  Download the report from the JRF website.

Just One In 10 Will Live In Social Housing By 2040

Soaring rents will leave nearly six million private renters living in poverty by the year 2040, new research for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has predicted.  The current generation of primary school children face paying private rents that are 90% higher than the cost of renting at the start of the recession. The JRF say a continuing decline in home ownership and social renting, together with a lack of new homes, will exacerbate the problems future households face. By 2040, just one in 10 will be living in social housing, down from the current figure of 8.2 million to 5.7 million in 2040. Meanwhile, social rents will increase 39% to reach £92.10 per week in real terms.  Download a copy of the report from the JRF website.

Nearly 400,000 Poor Pensioners Missing Out On Housing Benefit

Up to 390,000 older people in poverty could have claimed housing benefit last year but didn’t, a report by Age UK has found.  How we can end pensioner poverty found that pensioners who were eligible for housing benefit and didn’t claim it could have reduced their rent by an average of £48 a week. The report also found that there were 1.6 million older people living in poverty in the UK last year and 900,000 are living in severe poverty. Download a copy of the report from the Age UK website.