Crisis and Shelter Urge Rethink On Housing Benefit Cut

Plans to penalise low income families for having young adult job seekers living at home could drive up youth homelessness, Crisis and Shelter warn. Government proposals will see £800 a year cut from housing benefit paid to parents or guardians where there is a young person under 25 seeking work. Current rules make a deduction only if the young person is in employment. The move comes at a time when over 600,000 young people are unemployed and not in education and when rising housing costs are forcing more to remain in the family home. The latest figures from the ONS show one in three men under 34 now lives at home, along with one in six women.  Read more on the Crisis website.