Future of Housing Benefit for Supported Housing

The Government has set out in broad terms their approach to the future of paying for housing benefit in supported and specialist housing. Following Iain Duncan Smith’s statement to the DWP select committee on 17 September, the DWP have clarified that,

    *Additional housing costs for supported and specialist housing, ‘exempt accommodation’, will be managed outside the Universal Credit (UC) when it is introduced in 2013.

    *In the short-term, there will be an interim system that is broadly similar to current arrangements. People in supported and specialist accommodation with higher housing costs will continue to be eligible for housing benefit from their local authority.

    *In the medium term, DWP will design, develop and potentially pilot a more localised system for managing these costs outside the Universal Credit.

Ministers have decided that ‘exempt accommodation’ should come out of UC so residents will have no entitlement to housing costs through UC. DWP see this as the best way forward to ensure system is flexible enough to cover the various costs within supported housing.  They intend using the existing definition of exempt accommodation. Read more on the NHF website.