The forgotten battle on Housing Benefit

Well perhaps forgotten is a bit much. But the national focus has slipped. While MPs and Campaigners are continuing to plug away, the changes to Housing Benefit have slipped from the lime light of cuts that have a pernicious impact on people. So I thought I’d use this week’s blog to update you on Camden’s situation.

Remember that the housing benefit caps were bought in under the guise of forcing landlords to reduce rents. The Government’s argument went: An inflated private rented sector, across the land was solely down to the public purse’s willingness to fund an unlimited life of luxury for benefit scroungers who were living in Hampstead palaces while the rest of us could barely afford Doncaster (I have absolutely nothing against Doncaster by the way – it’s just cheaper to live in than Camden).

The housing benefit bill and rising rental costs were nothing to do with the chronic lack of housing supply in parts of the country. Particularly the severe shortfall between supply and demand at every level of the housing market in the south east. And there was certainly no concept that housing benefit is paid in London to a large number of employed people who simply wouldn’t work here in low paid jobs if they didn’t get it.

The housing benefit cap for a three bed in central London is the same as the IPSA cap for MPs allowances for a one bed in central London. Because housing is just bloody expensive here.

We have the same requirements for lower skilled employees as every other part of the country, our schools still need cleaning, we have an insatiable demand for coffee and sandwiches, and pubs, and for our train tickets to be sold to us over very long ticket office opening hours. You get the picture.

So here’s where we are in Camden. As at the 1st of October (the latest available figures):

We have 3471 housing benefit claimants. More than half are affected by the cap – at total 1814 claimants will have to renegotiate their rent or move.

401 claimants or 22% will lose less than £10 per week. This equates to just over £43 per calendar month. Depending on the size of the property and the proportion of a landlords income this represents we can be hopeful that a good number of these people will be able to simply renegotiate. But it won’t be all. Landlords will be letting at rates based on both the market and their outgoings. Rents in London are going up scarily fast.

Then we get to the rest.

The average loss over the entire pool of losing claimants is £40.55 per week. Or in excess of £175 per calendar month. Not often one to champion the cause of private landlords, would you give up this level of income in a month? Landlords good or bad and whether they own just one or two properties or a whole street, operate in a competitive and rising market. This is London. This is Camden. From my own experience not a week goes by when I don’t get a letter from either a lettings agent or a big financial institution offering me silly money for my flat in, let’s face it, not the nicest bit of Kentish Town (not the worst bit either and I love it, before my neighbours or ward councillors go spare).

The losers in Camden include 142 pensioners, 431 people aged 25 to 35 (as the single persons age limit is raised forcing more people in to bedsits) and 721 families that are responsible for 1359 children.

There are also nearly 300 working claimants.

It doesn’t matter which group you look at, pensioners, forced to leave their social and support networks, uprooted from places where they may be long established. Or forced to worse housing, more poorly insulated and more costly to heat. Young people trying to find their way in life forced to live in bedsit accommodation for longer. 1359 Children who face living in increasing overcrowding or major disruption to their education. And of course people in work for whom housing benefit is a subsidy for wages that fail to reflect the cost of living in London who may be forced to leave their job and claim even more benefits or to a lengthy commute adding to their costs.

For the children there’s an added risk, churn through the school system, particularly increased in year movements, makes place planning unpredictable. This can be a nightmare for parents trying desperately to get their kids in to school. Perhaps in the hope that they will be more successful and less reliant on the state. But worse, for those children who are known to social services or are at risk, a forced and completely unnecessary move makes them more vulnerable because even if everything goes smoothly new relationships will need to be built with a new social worker and new teachers.

We’re doing targeted work with our claimants to help them understand and deal with the changes, and with our in work claimants we’ve funded a project aimed at helping them increase their income to lessen the likelihood they have to move by ensuring they can afford a bit more rent. But we can’t help everyone.

It’s worth highlighting again because this is having a slow impact on thousands of people, particularly in the south east. It’s become less visible because the date for the changes to take effect is the anniversary of the claim, so there isn’t a mass migration of people from inner London to outer or from better housing to poorer. There is a slow and malevolent change in thousands of people lives. When universal credit takes effect it will get far far worse.