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Associations having to give food parcels to tenants on Universal Credit
Housing associations are having to hand out food parcels and vouchers to tenants on Universal Credit as well as helping with utility bills, a survey by Inside Housing has revealed.
The findings come as MPs debated a pause to the rollout of Universal Credit last night. Labour claimed a symbolic victory, after Conservative MPs abstained from the vote and 299 MPs voted in favour of a pause with no opposition.
Commons speaker John Bercow issued a rebuke to the Conservatives for not voting. He said they could not "suddenly say we didn’t lose" just because they did not take part.
The Inside Housing survey asked housing associations if they had offered any support to tenants on Universal Credit in the form of financial help to pay for food or bills. Out of the 33 who responded to the survey 11 said they had given tenants vouchers for food banks, food parcels or helped with electricity or gas bills.
Peter Cowley, acting director of housing services for Nottingham Community Housing Association, said the organisation had already spent £400 on food parcels for tenants in the first six months of this year “which is close to what we spent in the whole of 2016/17”.
The government has come under intense pressure from both opposition MPs and Conservative backbenchers over the six-week wait for the first Universal Credit payment, which is pushing some people into debt. This week the government announced a u-turn on charging 55p per minute for the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) Universal Credit phoneline following pressure from charities and MPs. The phone line will be made free of charge “in the next month”.
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Other landlords have offered budgeting advice to tenants. Broadland Housing in Norwich said it has had to help one tenant with his Universal Credit paperwork to avoid him being sanctioned because “no other support agencies will help”.
Seven housing associations said they had to increase their bad debt provision as a result of an increase in rent arrears from people moving onto Universal Credit.
Terrie Alafat, chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Housing, said: “It is becoming increasingly clear that there are a number of very serious issues with the roll-out of Universal Credit and that people are experiencing real hardship as a result.
“This latest survey very much echoes what our members have been telling us for months about the intensive support they are now having to provide to shelter people from a system that simply isn’t working.
“It is particularly frustrating for us because we wrote to the Department for Work and Pensions back in July to express our members’ concerns and make practical recommendations which were not taken up.
“The government must now listen and at the very least slow down the roll-out to avoid more people being pushed into poverty and homelessness.”
Sue Ramsden, policy leader at the National Housing Federation, said there seems to be a “huge gulf” between what people are saying is happening on the ground and what DWP says is happening. She said the National Housing Federation had “pressed” the DWP to carry out its own research on how people are coping during the six-week wait for their first Universal Credit payment.
The DWP has been approached for comment.
