Londoner Leo Alexander insisted that for some under-25s, housing benefit is "a necessity".
He left home at 18 due to family breakdown and said the money he receives goes straight towards subsidising the cost of the hostel he lives in.
Homelessness charity Crisis has warned that high rents are one of the factors which put young people at risk of homelessness.
Crisis identifies other issues to be low benefits and a lack of decent housing.
More young people are at risk of homelessness due to high rents, low benefits and a lack of decent housing, homelessness charity Crisis has warned.
As the charity opens its 'Crisis at Christmas' centres today, it is launching 'Shut Out', a new campaign calling for more to be done to stop young people becoming homeless.
Bristol Mayor George Ferguson will today be urged to continue with a "no evictions" policy over council tenants who fall into arrears because of the so-called "bedroom tax".
Tenants lose £12.70 a week in housing benefit if they are judged to have one bedroom more than they need or £23.90 a week if they have two bedrooms too many.
Two and a half million British adults will take out loans to heat their homes this Christmas, a social landlord's poll has revealed.
Circle Housing's survey found that around seven million (15%) British adults will take out a loan over the festive period to cover costs.
Housing associations say change to benefit rules means tenants cannot afford to rent three-bed maisonettes.
Three-bedroom homes are being condemned to demolition by housing associations because the coalition's bedroom tax has made them too expensive for tenants to live in, the Observer can reveal.
The average buy-to-let investor in England and Wales earned a total return of £12,129 in the year to September, and that figure could double over the next 12 months.
According to the latest buy-to-let index from LSL Property Services, the average BTL investor enjoyed a total annual return of 7.4% in September, up sharply from 6.1% in August.
Housing is a human right. That isn’t just my opinion, but also that of the authors of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 25 of the declaration, concerning the right to an adequate standard of living, is clear on the matter:
‘Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.’ (emphasis on housing is my own).Homelessness projects are closing down, levels of staff are reducing and bed spaces are being lost as housing budgets are squeezed, research published today reveals.
Homeless Link, an umbrella body, said 133 homelessness projects had closed and 4,000 beds in hostels and second stage accommodation had been lost since 2010.
A Birmingham MP has been called ‘misguided’ over his ‘idiotic’ suggestion that social housing tenants should get a lodger to avoid paying the bedroom tax.
Lib Dem MP for Yardley John Hemming suggested that with few one-bedroom properties available in the city, tenants would do better to take someone in.