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Landlords call for supported housing funding changes
The government should cap supported housing management costs and stop funding them through housing benefit, a group of 100 housing associations has recommended.
Umbrella body Placeshapers said the management costs charged by supported housing providers “would require a new, separate funding stream outside of ongoing housing benefit… capping management fees and clear parameters for eligible services”.
In its response to the National Housing Federation’s (NHF) consultation on the future funding of supported housing, Placeshapers said such a move would address fears that the housing benefit bill is “out of control”.
The NHF is drawing up recommendations for the funding of supported housing following the government’s decision to cap housing benefit in social housing at Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates by 2018.
Supported housing providers have warned that the cap would put vulnerable people’s accommodation at risk, with some future schemes already canned following the announcement.
Currently, housing benefit covers supported housing management charges as an ‘eligible service charge’.
Placeshapers recommended that supported housing is paid for through three distinct funding streams: core rent covered by housing benefit, the management fee, and care and support costs, which would continue to be funded by local authorities.
The body said both core rents and management fees should be protected with ringfenced budgets.
In its response, Placeshapers warned: “We are concerned about any assumption that core housing revenue costs can be subsidised from, for example, health contracts or large grant-giving bodies like lottery funds.
“We know from our work that any revenue support from the health sector or lottery funds operated on a full cost recovery basis without the ability to generate surplus.”
Following pressure from campaigners, the government has suspended the LHA cap for supported housing tenancies starting before 2017.
It has commissioned a review into the costs of supported housing, which it will be publishing this summer.
The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) has been contacted for comment.
