Bedroom tax: one in seven households 'face eviction'

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/12/bedroom-tax-households-eviction-rent-arrears

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Two-thirds of households in England affected by the bedroom tax have fallen into rent arrears since the policy was introduced in April, while one in seven families have received eviction risk letters and face losing their homes, a survey claims.

The National Housing Federation (NHF) said its survey demonstrated that the bedroom tax was "heaping misery and hardship" on already struggling families who were unable to pay their rent but unable to find anywhere cheaper to live because of a shortage of smaller homes.

The NHF survey is one of three separate reports published on Wednesday which collectively criticise the design and implementation of the bedroom tax and highlight the negative impact it has had on the lives of many of the 522,000 people in the UK who are subject to it.

The disability charity Papworth Trust says that a third of disabled people affected by the tax have been refused emergency financial help, despite government guidance that disabled people who live in adapted homes get first call on discretionary housing payment funding.

The trust said many disabled people who have been refused emergency payments – which are intended to provide short-term financial relief to those struggling to cope with the bedroom tax – were now cutting back on essentials such as food or household bills. It called on ministers to exempt people living in adapted properties from the tax.

Meanwhile, the Labour party has published the results of a freedom of information request which shows the number of tenants wrongly subjected to the bedroom tax as a result of drafting errors in legislation is nearly 50,000 – at least 10 times as many as official estimates.

Chris Bryant, the shadow minister for welfare reform, said information from a third of councils showed that 16,000 people were affected by the error, which affects working age tenants in social housing who have occupied the same home continuously since 1996.

The reports herald a day of parliamentary activity around the bedroom tax. A bill to abolish the tax will be introduced by Labour backbench MP Ian Lavery, while Lord Freud, the welfare minister, will appear before a committee of MPs to answer question on a raft of welfare reforms.

Lavery said he believed that the bedroom tax had caused the most visible poverty and heartache of all the coalition's welfare changes. "I have seen with my own eyes the absolutely astounding impact the bedroom tax has on disabled and sick people. I'm not sure the government is aware of the hardship and misery it has caused. We are talking about ordinary people who have been forced to move from the homes where they have spent a lifetime raising their kids. They have been cast out like dogs in the night."

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said: "We are determined to support those who might need extra help through these necessary reforms. That is why we have tripled the extra funding given to councils this year to £190m – some of which is specifically targeted at disabled people – and have announced that £165m will be available for councils next year to help vulnerable tenants."

It said the NHF could not prove whether the rise in tenant rent arrears was accounted for by the bedroom tax alone.

The bedroom tax – also known under its official names of "spare room subsidy" or "under-occupation penalty" – affects 660,000 housing benefit claimants living in social housing across the UK. Introduced last April, the policy imposes an average penalty of between £14 and £22 a week on working-age tenants deemed to have more bedrooms than they need.

NHF chief executive David Orr said: "From day one we have said the bedroom tax is unfair, unworkable and just bad policy. It's putting severe pressure on thousands of the nation's poorest people and must be repealed."