Housing Benefit – Parliamentary Written Answer

Mr Douglas Alexander: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government whether individuals not in accommodation owing to an inability to pay rents under the proposed changes to local housing allowance may be declared intentionally homeless.
Grant Shapps: Under the homelessness legislation that applies to England (Part 7 of the Housing Act 1996) a person becomes intentionally homeless if he or she is required to leave accommodation as a consequence of his or her own deliberate behaviour, and, but for that behaviour, it would have been reasonable for that person to continue to occupy the accommodation. A person who does not have accommodation owing to an inability to pay rents may or may not have become intentionally homeless, depending on the circumstances of the case. However, it is for local housing authorities to make decisions in individual cases.