{"id":228106,"date":"2025-07-01T02:08:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T02:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/228106\/"},"modified":"2025-07-01T02:08:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T02:08:11","slug":"new-cost-of-living-payments-announced-and-you-dont-even-need-to-be-on-benefits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/228106\/","title":{"rendered":"New cost of living payments announced and you don’t even need to be on benefits"},"content":{"rendered":"

The cost of living payments are worth \u00a3200 and they’re designed to help households pay for basic necessities such as food and water\"TheThe cost of living payments are worth \u00a3200<\/p>\n

Households struggling with basic bills can come forward to claim cost of living payments – and you don’t even need to be on benefits.<\/p>\n

Funding for the payments known as hardship grants comes from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP<\/a>) but they’re delivered via Birmingham<\/a> council.<\/p>\n

Payments are worth \u00a3200 per household and applicants can apply for the money online by visiting the Birmingham Voluntary Service Council website.<\/p>\n

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Get breaking news on BirminghamLive WhatsApp<\/a>, click the link to join<\/strong><\/p>\n

Applications for the latest round of hardship grants opened on June 23 following new round of funding from the DWP.<\/p>\n

The DWP<\/a> has allocated funding to local authorities across the country from its Household Support Fund (HSF) for councils to support residents with basic living costs.<\/p>\n

Birmingham’s grant scheme will run right through 2025 until March 2026, in line with the end of the latest round of HSF funding from the DWP<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Applicants must meet three sets of criteria to apply for the funding in Birmingham<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These are that applicants are a Birmingham resident, have not received a previous hardship grant in the past 12 months and can demonstrate they’re experiencing financial hardship, particularly with costs linked to food and energy.<\/p>\n

The council said: “The Household Support Fund (HSF), provided by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), is a fixed amount of money available to the local authority to support households in most need with essentials such as: food, energy, essential goods and supplies, including water.<\/p>\n

“Various forms of assistance are being offered to address a wide range of household circumstances.”<\/p>\n

The council does not stipulate that you need to be on benefits to apply, so long as you can demonstrate financial hardship – click here <\/a>to apply.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson added: “Please be aware that you may be asked to provide proof of address and proof of means-tested benefits (if you are in receipt of them) as part of your grant application.”<\/p>\n

They added: “Receiving a grant from this fund will not impact on any other benefits you may be receiving or may be entitled to.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The cost of living payments are worth \u00a3200 and they’re designed to help households pay for basic necessities…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228107,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,748,1267,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-228106","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-dwp","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114775543275723809","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}