Groups fight benefit rules that have smashed £10,000 hole in disabled tenants’ rent
Vulnerable people left homeless
A group of housing and learning disability organisations has protested to the government over steep benefit shortfalls which have made some vulnerable people homeless.
The National Housing Federation, Mencap, Housing Options, the Association for Real Change, and the Association for Supported Living, have called on the Department for Work and Pensions to resolve the problems caused by a series of decisions by social security commissioners.
The rulings, the first of which concerned tenants of Rivendell Lake Housing Association in Sheffield in 2006, capped the amount of housing benefit payable to several housing association tenants who had learning difficulties and received support at home. In the first case, Sheffield Council refused to pay the three claimants rents of £238.92 per week and only gave them housing benefit of £45 a week, leaving each of them with a £10,000 a year shortfall.
In September, the High Court barred a different Rivendell Lake Housing Association tenant from getting a judicial review of the social security commissioner’s refusal to allow him to appeal a previous ruling.
Mark McGoogan, national development manager of Mencap’s housing arm Golden Lane Housing, said: ‘There are thousands of people who will be affected by the judgement.’
He added that a number of respondents to a survey said they had been made homeless by benefit shortfalls and others had had ‘near misses’.
Some tenants with learning disabilities need to live in more expensive properties if they need an extra bedroom for night time carers, for example. Service charges may also be higher in supported housing to reflect the extra cost of helplines.
Benefit can be claimed at an enhan-ced rate in supported housing, if support is provided on behalf of the landlord. However, the commissioner ruled this was not the case because the providers’ contracts were with the council’s social services department not the landlord. The commissioner upheld the decision of local housing benefits departments to cut benefits to the amount tenants could claim if they did not live in supported housing.
The group of housing bodies and charities have written to the DWP several times since the first decision. The most recent reply, from the new housing benefit minister Helen Goodman , was ‘encouraging’, according to David Congdon, head of campaigns and policy at Mencap.
The Rivendell Lake case
£238.92
Weekly rent paid by Rivendell
£45
Amount of housing benefit paid by the council
£10,000
Annual shortfall they face as a result
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Readers' comments (3)
tony leatherbarrow | 26/10/2009 10:11 pm
As the person who led Rivendell lake and all the subsequent "Turnbull" appeal;s please let me dispel some urban myths. First and foremost RLHA is a not for profit organisation and at NO time during any of the proceedings did Turnbull make any negative comments about the propriety of our business or the manner in which we conducted ourselves. We tried our utmost to comply with the HB reg's as we interpreted them with the help of Prof. Ken Simons and others. Our sole aim was to offer person centred housing options to those who mainstream HA's needs could not meet, due to the complexity of their housing requirements . We never worked in a speculative manner and as such we were always invited by Local Authorities to respond to and meet their specific client needs. Our rental structures were always completely transparent and prior to any work in any area, we always met with HB depts and informed them the request that LA's had made of us and offered them an indicative rental structure. On the basis of this meeting we either choose to proceed or not. It therefore goes without saying that where we did proceed Walsall/Sheffield the initial indications given by HB depts was that they fully understood the "corporate" needs of the council in relation to these high cost packages. RLHA sort best value 25-30 years mortgage arrangements. On occasions costs were increased because LA's asked us to provide everything from a tea spoon to a double bed requiring us to take 110%+mortgages (with inevitably a higher % on the teaspoon element). We also provided monthly visits and reports via highly trained learning disability social workers/housing managers. In short we actively did our best to provide LA's/parents/tenants with high quality housing outcomes, in the end we failed because as the solicitor at the Sheffiield tribunal continually pointed out "he who pays the piper plays the tune"- meaning all the due diligence we did with support providers and the exacting contracts we had meant nought because we did not pay them . The debacle that has followed with Turnbull and "de minimis" etc does not take away from the dire fact that large numbers of this Countries most disabled and vulnerable people have lost their homes- question is why has it taken 2 years +for this to be now reported?
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Joe Halewood | 27/10/2009 10:28 am
I know of many supported housing rents higher than the Rivendell case that also went through the often tortuous process he describes and been involved in many of them. Even with the utmost transparency and substantial evidence needed for every expenditure cost item the process is dependent on HB officers knowledge largely of HB regulations - or at least the 5% or so that apply to supported housing / exempt accommodation.
95%+ of HB claims are for 'bog-standard' general needs housing and so HB officers raew trained on ONLY this element usually. (There are some exceptions thankfully.) So any HB claim that requires furnished accommodation or exceptional items to be provided - childrens playground eqpt in refuges for example - take time and often involved educating HB officers to their existence.
Why has this taken more than 2 years to report? Is the final question Tony asks no doubt in some exasperation.
It may be because so few people understand the implications of such decisions even within housing itself - supported housing is still a cinderella industry despite SP that has 80% of service users in sheltered that is not supported housing.
However, more cynically, it is because the petty actions of Sheffiled here are sold to the sector as being efficient despite the fact the only probable alternative is registered care - that costs the same council and the public purse more and disempowers vulnerable people more. Its the 'not from my budegt you dont' mentality of some HB offices even though they get this money back from central govt and the alternative in registered care has to come from existing budgets - which means SSDs simply set the eligibility bar higher and thereby deny even more vulnerable people.
So in reality such decisions by councils are coercive and abusive but sold on the basis that if the provider evicts the tenants then they are abusive or abhorrent. As such providers cant risk the bad reputation and the whole story looks like scaremongering when initially reported.
I dare say councils spend more money with industry publications that some providers do as well!!
However, the coercive and ill-thought through empire building decisions of certain HB depts have massive implications for support and care provision in their locale and cost the tax payer so much more.
The "who pays for what" in supported housign or supported living becomes an internal bunfight between council depts and invariably ends up with higher costs all in the so-called name of Best Value.
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Tim Miller | 02/11/2009 10:33 pm
This has been knocking around for a long time and whilst not wishing to get involved in debate on the original clients / cases / judgements, the HB regs have not been fit for purpose for some time.
Since SP fractured the link betwen housing and support, and particularly given the growing levels of procurement/personalisation in the sector, the regs need to be changed and hopefully this lobbying will prompt this long overdue update.
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