Half of all homeless people first become homeless aged under 21, with the majority going through the experience again and again because they don’t get the help they need, new research has revealed.
Conducted by Cardiff University for homelessness charity Crisis, the study is the first ever profile of single homeless people across England, Wales and Scotland, showing the reasons people first become homeless and the horrific consequences for their lives.
The Department for Work and Pensions has overturned a tribunal’s decision to exempt two brothers from the bedroom tax due to room size.
The landmark ruling is a blow to anyone hoping to challenge the bedroom tax solely by arguing that a room is too small to be considered a bedroom because of overcrowding definitions in the relevant Housing Acts in Scotland and England.
The head of a prominent regional lettings agency says the new immigration act being trialled in the Midlands from today, and possibly nationwide next year, could lead to agents accidentally discriminating.
It will also mean landlords will rely increasingly on agents who may have to change procedures to cope with the additional workload.
The proportion of private sector tenants evicted by their landlord or letting agent has fallen over the past year says the Residential Landlords Association.
According to the most recent English Housing Survey for 2012/13, just seven per cent of tenants who had moved in the last three years said that it was because they had been asked to leave by their landlord or agent. This compares with nine per cent in 2011/12.
A proposed bill to exempt hundreds of thousands of households from the bedroom tax would lead to legal challenges, appeals and more administration costs for social landlords, sector experts have warned.
A private members bill to change the bedroom tax, tabled by Liberal Democrat backbencher MP Andrew George, passed its second reading in the House of Commons by 306 votes to 231 last Friday.
Labour MPs are set to support proposed legislation that would water down the bedroom tax.
In an article for the blog website LabourList yesterday, Rachel Reeves,
shadow work and pensions secretary, confirmed that her party would vote
for the private members bill, tabled by Liberal Democrat MP Andrew
George.
Iain Duncan Smith is to signal a further crackdown on welfare in a speech suggesting that changes to the benefit system have lowered unemployment.
The Conservative might promise to lower the benefit cap from £26,000 to nearer to £18,000 in its general election manifesto.
A landlord must pay almost £1,000 after leaving his tenant without heating last winter.
Vivender Nath Blaggan, 47, of Stockton, allegedly left a rental property in the town with a faulty boiler for three months during the coldest part of the year.
The Labour Party has accused the Liberal Democrats of ‘unbelievable hypocrisy’ over its change in stance on the bedroom tax.
The deputy prime minister Nick Clegg said that the Lib Dems no longer support the policy in its current form and now want an exemption for disabled people and for housing benefit to only be cut if households refuse an offer to move.
Government officials are piloting ways to force benefit claimants to undergo mental health treatment or risk losing their benefits, reports suggest.
A series of pilots combining help to work initiatives and mental health treatments, led jointly by the Department of Health and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), are due to be expanded within weeks