760,000 Renting Families One Pay Cheque Away From Losing Home

With little or no savings to fall back on, 45% of private renters in England could not afford to pay their rent for more than a month if they lost their job, new research from Shelter shows. Surviving from one pay cheque to the next, the Shelter and YouGov study found almost three million private renters could be just one pay cheque away from losing their home. The study shows the situation is particularly bleak for working families with children, with some 760,000 renting families just one pay cheque away from losing their home – with a job loss leaving 550,000 of these families immediately unable to pay rent. Read more on 24housing.

https://www.24housing.co.uk/news/760000-renting-families-just-one-pay-cheque-away-from-losing-home%e2%80%8b%e2%80%8b/

Families With Stable Jobs At Risk Of Homelessness In Britain

Homelessness is now a serious risk for working families with stable jobs who cannot find somewhere affordable to live after being evicted by private-sector landlords seeking higher rents, the local government ombudsman has warned. Michael King said nurses, taxi drivers, hospitality staff and council workers were among those assisted by his office after being made homeless and placed in often squalid and unsafe temporary accommodation by local authorities. King said the common perception that homelessness was about people with chaotic lives who slept rough no longer held true. Read more on the Guardian website.

Lib Dems Unveil 'Rent To Buy' Pledge For First Time Homeowners

Tens of thousands of young renters will be offered “rent to buy” deposit-free homes as part of a Liberal Democrat manifesto aimed at enticing a younger generation to back the party. The announcement is the flagship policy among a number of reforms aimed at attracting younger voters, also those most likely to be receptive to the party’s hard remain message and a promise of a referendum on the final Brexit deal to allow voters to opt to stay in the EU. Under the “rent to buy” pledge, young professionals and working families unable to afford a home would be able to buy their first home for the same cost as renting, with each monthly payment steadily buying a share in the home. Read more on the Guardian website.

Working Families Cutting Back On Essentials To Pay Rent Or Mortgage

Nearly half of working families have having to cut back on essential food and clothing to pay the mounting costs of the housing crisis. Rising house prices and rents caused by a shortage of affordable homes mean the average household now spends 29 per cent of its monthly income on housing costs. Those locked out of the housing market who privately rent fare even worse, spending 43 per cent of their salaries. Now research by Shelter and YouGov found that the equivalent of 3.7 million families say they have cut back on buying essential food or clothing to pay their mortgage or rent. A total of 44 per cent of households surveyed said they had had cut back on those items. Read more on the Independent website.

Many Families Could Not Afford A Month's Rent If They Lost Job

One in three families in England could not pay their rent or mortgage for more than a month if they lost their job, a study for the charity Shelter suggests. High housing costs and a lack of personal savings are cited by the charity as reasons for this. The online survey by pollsters YouGov in July questioned 1,581 people in working families with children. Read more on the Shelter website.

Make Up For Benefit Cuts By Working 200 More Hours

The Government has admitted that families receiving in-work benefits will lose out from April next year – but suggested they could make up the shortfall themselves if they worked harder. In what Labour has called Iain Duncan Smith’s “Christmas message”, the DWP proposed people “recoup the loss” from welfare reforms by doing three or four hours extra work every week. The Work and Pensions Secretary has insisted people on universal credit will not be made worse off by in-work benefit changes announced in the summer budget. Yet in a document released after Parliament broke up for the holidays, the DWP appeared to confirm that it expected working families to lose up to £1,600 a year. Read more on the Welfare Weekly website.

UK Suffers 10-Year Slide As 13 Million Live In Poverty

The UK has slipped into a mire of poverty, joblessness, insecure work and private rented sector (PRS) housing over the last 10 years. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation's (JRF) 'Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion' report shows that the coalition's alleged recovery of the UK's economy has left 13 million living in poverty - and half of all those living in poverty are in a working family. Though there has been a big fall in the number of over 75s living in poverty, the number of adults under 25 living in poverty has soared. Compared to 10 years ago, many more of those in poverty are now living in the PRS. The report highlights the way the housing market has had a negative impact on people in poverty.  Download the report from the JRF website.

Housing Benefit Bill for Working Families Soaring By £1.1billion

The housing benefit bill for working families is set to soar by £1billion, new research reveals. Ministers have repeatedly pledged to get welfare spending under control and have announced curbs on help with rent. But the cost of subsidising tenants in homes where someone works will rise from £5.1billion this year to £6.2billion in real terms over the next four years. The figures from the House of Commons library are a damning indictment of the Government inaction, Labour’s Rachel Reeves said. Ministers have repeatedly pledged to make work pay and provide enough affordable homes but they have failed on both fronts. Read more on the Daily Mirror website.

Rent 'Unaffordable' For Low-Income Families in Third of UK

A third of Britain is effectively off-limits to lower-income working families because private rents are unaffordable, a new report from the Resolution Foundation claims.  It says most of southern England is now beyond the reach of less affluent households.  The Home Truths report identifies local authorities that are "affordable" for a couple with a child requiring a two-bedroom property on a household income of £22,000 a year. Affordable is defined as a rent that is no more than 35% of net household income. On that basis, 125 of 376 local authorities in Britain (33%) are unaffordable for less-affluent working families. The housing minister said the report was "factually flawed" and failed to take housing benefit into account. Download  a copy of the report from the Resolution Foundation website.

400,000 Low Income Working Families Worse Off With Universal Credit

The findings of a CIH report – Making Work Pay - estimate that 400,000 working families will have less income with Universal Credit in 2015 than they did in 2010, demonstrating that the government's aim for households to be better off in work than out of work under Universal Credit is not the case for all families. The 400,000 families who could be hardest hit include some of the lowest earning in the UK - households that earn £247 or under per week will all see a fall in real income in 2015 and lone parents with one, two or three children will always be worse off if Universal Credit continues in its current format. Download the report from the CIH website.

Council Agrees To Sell Homes for £1

An innovative housing programme which will see empty homes renovated and brought back into use is expected to be rolled out across Stoke-on-Trent. The £3m scheme, believed to be the first of its kind in the country, will see a cluster of 35 council owned empty homes sold with the benefit of a loan to make essential repairs. The full cost of each house will be an up to £30,000 loan to carry out work to bring the house up to the decent home standard plus a £1 to buy the property. The target customers are working families who already live and work in Stoke-on-Trent for a certain period of time and are on low income and struggled to get a mortgage. In addition to loans of up to £30,000 there will also be additional funding made available to private landlords of empty homes in these areas to bring their properties back to a decent living standard.  Read more on the Stoke on Trent council website.

Employers Can’t Offer the Hours Parents Need

Working Families (WF) is concerned about the changes to Working Tax Credit (WTC) from April 2012 which mean that couples currently working 16 hours must increase those hours to 24 (with one parent working at least 16 hours) in order to continue to receive WTC.   WF carried out a survey of employers representing around a quarter of a million employees, to find out their likely responses when their employees ask for more hours of work. Among the findings were;

• 67% of employers who responded are unaware of the changes to WTC rules

• 17 per cent are confident of accommodating a request for eight more hours of work. A further 33 per cent said they may be able to offer some hours, but not eight, while 17 per cent said it was “unlikely” or “impossible” to accommodate a request.

• When asked about the impact on business if an employee left because they couldn’t get more hours of work, only 17 per cent said “business would suffer”. Fifty six per cent thought it would be a “minor inconvenience” and 17 per cent were confident that they could easily recruit a replacement.

• Only half of employers would create jobs of less than 16 hours a week if they thought there was demand for them from parents.

Read more on the Working Families website.