George Osborne has defended the bedroom tax, saying it is ‘only fair’ to treat social housing tenants and private renters the same.
The chancellor of the exchequer, speaking to supermarket workers in Kent, said: ‘We have got 1.8 million families waiting for social housing and yet there are eight million spare rooms across the sector.
A new study has revealed that more than half (56 percent) of housing associations and almost a third (30 percent) of councils are worried that their tenants still know hardly anything about the government's welfare changes.
The joint research by the Chartered Institute of Housing South West (CIH SW) and the National Housing Federation (NHF) found that of all the reforms, social landlords expect direct payments to have the biggest impact on their tenants.
Crisis has called on the government to urgently reverse cuts made to housing benefit as new figures reveal a 10 percent rise in homelessness since 2011.
And the official statistics, released by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), show that the number of households accepted as homeless and owed the main homelessness duty over the last two years has risen by 26 percent.
The London Assembly has called on the Mayor to launch an "urgent review" of the potential impact on London of the Government’s plans to change the way housing benefits are paid, amid fears that it could lead to an increase in rent arrears and damage the building of new affordable housing.
Assembly Members backed a motion urging Boris Johnson to press the Government for assurances that the introduction of the new Universal Credit – whereby rent would be paid to tenants instead of directly to landlords – would not exacerbate London’s housing crisis.
Councils that have pledged not to evict tenants who run up arrears as a result of the government’s ‘bedroom tax’ could struggle to keep their promise once universal credit is introduced.
Dundee Council last week agreed that no tenant in arrears due to the under-occupation penalty would be evicted if they are doing what they can to avoid falling behind on payments, and several other councils are considering similar promises.