The government's benefit cap will struggle to meet its aims of encouraging people into work and saving taxpayers' money, a report suggests.
The Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) looked at the London borough of Haringey, one of four pilot areas.
Housing is a human right. That isn’t just my opinion, but also that of the authors of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 25 of the declaration, concerning the right to an adequate standard of living, is clear on the matter:
‘Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.’ (emphasis on housing is my own).Homelessness projects are closing down, levels of staff are reducing and bed spaces are being lost as housing budgets are squeezed, research published today reveals.
Homeless Link, an umbrella body, said 133 homelessness projects had closed and 4,000 beds in hostels and second stage accommodation had been lost since 2010.
A Birmingham MP has been called ‘misguided’ over his ‘idiotic’ suggestion that social housing tenants should get a lodger to avoid paying the bedroom tax.
Lib Dem MP for Yardley John Hemming suggested that with few one-bedroom properties available in the city, tenants would do better to take someone in.David Cameron may be forced to rethink his plan to deny under-25s an automatic right to state benefits because many of the people losing out would be single parents.
Nick Clegg is worried that parents could be affected by proposals to restrict housing benefit for the more than one million “Neets” – young people not in education, employment or training – under a strategy announced by the Prime Minister at last week’s Conservative Party Conference.
The Conservative Party will look at axing housing support for under-25s as part of its manifesto for the next election, the prime minister confirmed this week.
Setting a clear direction of travel, David Cameron told delegates at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester on Wednesday that he wanted to see ‘bold action’ in ending welfare dependency among young people.
The National Empty Homes Loan Fund (NEHLF) has received enquiries for funding worth over £1 million in its first month.
The scheme, which is aimed at bringing some of England’s 710,000 empty homes back into affordable use, has been inundated with enquiries as property owners apply for funds to renovate their houses.
A WOMAN who cannot share a bedroom with her partner because of disability has won a landmark ruling that reducing her welfare benefits under the bedroom tax is a breach of her human rights.
The woman, who has multiple sclerosis, won her appeal against Glasgow City Council’s decision to apply the 14 per cent deduction for her “spare” bedroom at a tribunal hearing.
Adults and children with disabilities who are challenging the government’s bedroom tax have been granted permission to take their fight to the Court of Appeal after losing a High Court challenge earlier this year.
Giving his reasons for granting an appeal hearing, the Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Aikens said that the cases "raise issues of public importance concerning the amended housing benefit scheme and the needs of disabled/ young people and so should be considered by the Court of Appeal. Further, the points raised in the grounds of appeal and the proposed ‘skeleton’ argument have a reasonable prospect of success.”
‘Bizarre’ government guidelines place onus on landlords not local authorities to define a bedroom
Government guidance issued to local authorities this week on how to classify a bedroom for the purposes of the bedroom tax has been panned as ‘bizarre’ and ‘wrong’ by experts.