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Welsh Government budget confirms housing support grant
The Welsh Government has confirmed its intention to create a new Housing Support Grant in detailed budget documents.
Ministers announced earlier this month that they would be scrapping plans revealed at last year’s budget for a poverty prevention mega grant, incorporating both housing and non-housing related programmes.
Instead, two new grants – the Housing Support Grant and the Children and Communities Grant – will be introduced from April 2019.
Detailed Welsh Government draft budget tables for 2019/20 published on Tuesday show £126.8m of spending on the Housing Support Grant.
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The move follows a campaign from providers of services funded by the Supporting People Grant, a £125m programme which sees councils given cash to fund housing support services for vulnerable people.
They had voiced fears that merging Supporting People with non-housing grants would lead to cash-strapped councils channelling the money elsewhere.
The Housing Support Grant will roll together Supporting People, Homelessness Prevention and Rent Smart Wales Enforcement.
The Welsh Government will also inject another £35m into its Social Housing Grant programme compared with previous plans, bringing the pot up to £138.2m for 2019/20. However, grant levels will still be lower than the £207.1m available for 2018/19.
Welsh Housing Quality Standard funding will remain at £108m for 2019/20, while £45m will be allocated for the Innovative Housing Programme and £17.9m for Homelessness Support Grant.
“At a time when budgets are tight and financial pressures are impacting on services, we are pleased Welsh Government has acted to protect funding for homelessness and housing related support in Wales,” said Stuart Ropke, chief executive of Community Housing Cymru.
“We are also pleased to see that today’s budget continues Welsh Government’s commitment to provide funding to enable housing associations to build the homes Wales needs.”
Matt Dicks, director of the Chartered Institute of Housing Cymru, said: “This budget reflects Welsh Government’s strong commitment to supporting housing professionals to deliver on the housing aspiration and ambitions of communities across Wales.
“We must remain fully grounded, however, in the realities facing many of those communities, where poverty, the ongoing impact of welfare reform, in particular the roll-out of Universal Credit, and access to affordable and suitable housing continue to have a very real impact.”
