Research Reveals Tenant Debt Is Widening Income Divide

Research into the impact of financial and economic changes on households has uncovered a widening income disparity between tenants, with additional debts reducing financial resilience for those at the bottom end. The longitudinal research project – Challenging Times, Changing Lives – follows 20 tenants, including single people and couples, over three years, to assess how people are coping with austerity measures, including changes to welfare benefits. The fourth report, in a series of six-monthly updates, reveals the lowest income group is experiencing a greater struggle than previously reported.  This group has taken on more debts to cover sudden and unforeseen changes in benefit entitlement and the deepening impact of the bedroom tax. Read more on the Riverside website.

Bedroom Tax-Driven Small Property Development Begins

A £6.3 million development of 75 smaller properties designed to tackle the impact of the bedroom tax has begun in Liverpool. The one and two-bedroom homes are being built on land in Knotty Ash gifted to social landlord Riverside by Liverpool City Council, as part of the Mayoral pledge to deliver 5,000 new homes in the city by 2015. Read more on 24dash.

DWP May Be Over-Estimating Bedroom Tax Savings

University and social landlord collaborative research has found the DWP may have significantly over-estimated the savings from the bedroom tax. The University of York worked with Riverside, Wigan and Leigh Housing, Affinity Sutton and Gentoo to apply figures based on the experience of the housing associations tenants to a model used by the DWP to estimate the savings reported to parliament in impact assessments in 2011 and 2012. DWP estimated that the introduction of bedroom tax would reduce the housing benefit bill by £930 million over the next two years, with further tests showing annual savings within a range of £10 million either side of its main estimate. However, the new research suggests that using the DWP’s own model, the actual savings may be little more than 60 per cent of the projected figure. Download a copy of the report from the Riverside website.

Samaritans Called In Over Liverpool Bedroom Tax Suicide Risk

The Samaritans have been drafted in by Liverpool's Riverside Housing Association to help deal with desperate tenants on the brink of suicide because of the bedroom tax. Staff at Riverside Housing Association’s head office in Speke are being trained by phone counsellors from the Samaritans as workers struggle to cope with the high volume of calls from tenants at risk of suicide.  And South Liverpool Homes (SLH) said in early May a tenant attempted suicide over the bedroom tax and earlier this year a resident committed suicide over issues believed to be related to financial hardship.  Read more on the Liverpool Echo website.

Tenants Fail To Pay the Bedroom Tax

A large proportion of tenants hit by the bedroom tax have so far failed to pay the resulting shortfall in their rent.  Several of the UK’s largest housing associations have this week revealed thousands of tenants have not covered their rent since the controversial policy was introduced on 1 April. This has sparked fears that landlords’ income streams and ability to borrow cheaply to build new homes could be hit if the trend continues.  Liverpool-based Riverside Group said around half of its 6,193 affected households receiving full housing benefit have not paid anything at all to cover the shortfall, while a quarter contributed something but did not pay their rent in full. Just one in four affected tenants paid the full amount.  Read more on Inside Housing.

Benefits Change Blamed For Slump in Demand of Three-Bedroom Homes

The county’s most popular size of social housing has now become the least desirable thanks to the proposed ‘bedroom tax’, a housing association claims. Riverside, Carlisle’s largest social landlord, has seen a U-turn in the attitude of people searching for new homes which it attributes to the proposed tax. Last week the housing association advertised two three-bedroom houses, but had just one applicant for each. Read more on the Carlisle News and Star website.

Real Cost Of the Bedroom Tax

Social landlord Riverside is continuing to pressure MPs to give up the bedroom tax and cites new research by the Housing Futures Network (HNF), a collection of leading housing groups, to support its case. The research, carried out for Riverside in Wirral’s Tranmere and Rock Ferry neighbourhood, found that one in four tenants would be affected by housing benefit cuts, if they are of working age and deemed to be under occupying their home by just one bedroom. This is in accordance with very strict criteria to be introduced by the Department of Work and Pensions. The cuts would not only affect tenants, but could have an impact on the local economy, which stands to lose £65,000 per annum just from Riverside tenants. For all social housing tenants affected in the area, the annual local economic impact could be as much as £400,000 per year. Read more on the Riverside website.

Under-Occupancy Benefit Cuts to Hit Vulnerable Hardest

New research launched by the Housing Futures Network - comprising Affinity Sutton, Gentoo, Places for People and Riverside - has revealed the impact housing benefit changes would have on social housing tenants underoccupying their homes. The network interviewed 452 working-age households in receipt of benefit and living in social housing, which face cuts to their benefit payments from 2013 under Government proposals. In total 670,000 households could be impacted by the cut. The results from the survey showed:
*71% of the tenants surveyed stand to lose up to £15 per week, or up to 10% of their household income and nearly a third (29%) would lose more than £15 a week.
*Whilst a quarter of underoccupiers would try to downsize to a smaller property to escape the benefit cut, the majority do not believe this is an option for them. Over a third (35%) believed they would be likely to end up in rent arrears as a result of the cut.
*43% of underoccupiers are already struggling financially and 83% would find it difficult to find the extra money to pay their rent if their housing benefit were cut.
Download a copy of the report from the Affinity Sutton website.