Inside Housing understands that civil servants at the DWP
plan to commission research to kickstart proposals that have made little
progress since 2011. Plans to localise cash for supported housing raised
significant concern among providers in a consultation exercise carried out
three years ago. In the 2011 consultation the DWP suggested that supported
housing could be paid for through the local housing allowance with a fixed
‘top-up’ to recognise the higher costs of services such as 24-hour sleep-in
support. At the time, housing organisations including Framework, a specialist
homelessness charity, warned that such a change would ‘pose a serious threat to
the stability and well-being of thousands of vulnerable people’. Read more on Inside Housing.
