It is more than two months since the introduction of the bedroom tax, and the impact on social housing tenants is becoming clear.
The number of people seeking extra help from their local council to meet housing costs has soared, with more than 25,000 people applying for discretionary housing payments to help cover their rent in April, compared with 5,700 in the same month last year.
In my role as one of Peabody's welfare benefits advisers, I get to see first-hand how the bedroom tax affects our residents.
One of the people we work with has a degenerative illness and cannot manage the stairs in her three-bedroom home. She sleeps in the downstairs bedroom while her son and husband sleep upstairs. The property has been adapted due to her disability and her GP and specialist clinic are nearby. Adapted two-bedroom properties are in short supply and are often more expensive than the three bedrooms they currently have.
But there is no recognition of this situation, and the 14% cut to housing benefit applies.
Many residents I meet are cutting back on essentials such as heating and food to make ends meet. The rise in food banks has been well documented, with more than 350,000 people seeking help last year. We provide specialist advice on a case-by-case basis, and our team are trained to submit applications for discretionary housing payments to councils on their behalf. We have also been visiting those affected by benefit changes. This helps us identify those who need additional support.
The government must protect the vulnerable while making work pay and I have three suggestions for how this can be done:
Tackle the low-pay culture that exists in some companies: We understand and support the need to reduce the cost of welfare benefits and make the system more efficient, but this must be underpinned by decent work incentives and the introduction of a living wage that makes work pay.
Change how the under-occupation charge is calculated: Basing any reduction on the amount of housing benefit received, rather than eligible rent, would go some way to mitigating the huge impact on the poorest in our communities. Under this system, the percentage of housing benefit received could be reduced as earnings rose, enabling more people to pay their own way, but not so much as to discourage work.
There is simply not enough affordable housing in London: Investment in housing is investing in the economy, creating more jobs and opportunities, and investing in communities. Lower rents and higher wages means reduced welfare and a growing economy.
Government could also provide some financial backing to a national mutual exchange scheme – expanding the work housing providers are already doing to help people who want to move. It could recognise the unfairness of the plans as they currently stand by only applying the bedroom tax to those people who have declined a reasonable offer of alternative accommodation.
Together, these changes would ameliorate the personal cost of the bedroom tax and the huge damage it is causing in our communities. They would improve lives for many thousands of people, help them stand on their own two feet, and reduce public expenditure on benefits.
The government's argument is that tax-payers should not subsidise those who have a spare room in their social home. But, for many people, this is not a choice they have made. There is often a real need for an extra bedroom. And if these people are forced into the private rented sector the housing benefit bill will go up, not down.
Danny Hardie is welfare benefits adviser at Peabody
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