*”Housing benefit rates have been frozen since March 2020 and are currently based on rental prices for 2018-2019. With the cost of living continuing to wreak havoc on household finances, Crisis says the Westminster Government’s persistent failure to increase housing benefit in line with real world costs will push more people into homelessness and destitution.”*
For comparison:
In 2018 my old flatmate renewed the lease on the 2 bed flat that we rented prior to me heading to New Zealand – the renewal was for £1,000/mth. (this is the period that housing benefit rates are based on).
In 2023, I moved back to the UK, and rented a 2 bed flat in the same apartment block – the rent was £1,600/mth.
On this (admittedly single) example, the market rent has risen 60%.
Housing benefit has risen 0%.
(The housing benefit rate for Bristol is £824.99 for a 2 bedroom property – the average for a 1 bed flat in Bristol is more than that.)
Lets me start off by saying that homelessness and lack of affordable housings is one og the major evils facing society in the 2020s. It should be a government priority to get rid of it. (If only we could use a time machine to bring some 1940’s Labour Ministers back to government).
But I have my problems with Housing Benefit. Perhaps I’m wrong but I see it as primarily a conduit for transporting taxpayer’s money from the government to the landlords.
Similarly with Income Support. This in effect subsidized employers to pay low wages.
I see the law of unintended consequence in action. What do other’s think? Have this been widely discussed?
I would much rather live in a society where rents were low enough and wages high enough that folks had a decent living without benefits. I guess I’m a bit Utopian.
Don’t you just inflate rent if you increase HB?
Thw solution is not to keep throwing tax payers money at it. The solution is rent control.
Freezing benefits is their favourite thing to do. Working age benefits have been frozen or practically frozen for most of the last 10 years.
5 comments
*”Housing benefit rates have been frozen since March 2020 and are currently based on rental prices for 2018-2019. With the cost of living continuing to wreak havoc on household finances, Crisis says the Westminster Government’s persistent failure to increase housing benefit in line with real world costs will push more people into homelessness and destitution.”*
For comparison:
In 2018 my old flatmate renewed the lease on the 2 bed flat that we rented prior to me heading to New Zealand – the renewal was for £1,000/mth. (this is the period that housing benefit rates are based on).
In 2023, I moved back to the UK, and rented a 2 bed flat in the same apartment block – the rent was £1,600/mth.
On this (admittedly single) example, the market rent has risen 60%.
Housing benefit has risen 0%.
(The housing benefit rate for Bristol is £824.99 for a 2 bedroom property – the average for a 1 bed flat in Bristol is more than that.)
Lets me start off by saying that homelessness and lack of affordable housings is one og the major evils facing society in the 2020s. It should be a government priority to get rid of it. (If only we could use a time machine to bring some 1940’s Labour Ministers back to government).
But I have my problems with Housing Benefit. Perhaps I’m wrong but I see it as primarily a conduit for transporting taxpayer’s money from the government to the landlords.
Similarly with Income Support. This in effect subsidized employers to pay low wages.
I see the law of unintended consequence in action. What do other’s think? Have this been widely discussed?
I would much rather live in a society where rents were low enough and wages high enough that folks had a decent living without benefits. I guess I’m a bit Utopian.
Don’t you just inflate rent if you increase HB?
Thw solution is not to keep throwing tax payers money at it. The solution is rent control.
Freezing benefits is their favourite thing to do. Working age benefits have been frozen or practically frozen for most of the last 10 years.