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New research launched today by advice charity Housing Rights shows that renting privately in Northern Ireland is becoming increasingly unaffordable for people who rely on housing benefit to pay their rent. Almost 9 out of 10 of rental properties are out of reach for people receiving Housing Benefit with the research showing that as little as 12% of properties in the sector would have their rent fully covered by the amount of benefit available.
A research initiative from the University of Ulster and the University of York plans to explore claimant perspectives on the experience of receiving Universal Credit as well as developing recommendations for the future evolution of Universal Credit in Northern Ireland. The project also hopes to generate lessons about the specific and distinctive operation of Universal Credit in Northern Ireland that can be shared with policymakers in the rest of the UK.
Mitigation payments have really helped the people of Northern Ireland to deal with the financial stresses created by welfare reforms like the bedroom tax. These mitigations are shortly due to end, something that will cause pain and hardship for many. However, mitigation payments can and have been lost. Victoria, one of our advisers recently assisted a client facing eviction due to the loss of his mitigation payment.
As one of over 70 organisations now part of the Cliffedge NI Coalition, Housing Rights has highlighted deep concern with the planned end of welfare mitigations.
41 additional people or families stopped receiving extra payments to offset the impact of the bedroom tax between 1 October 2018 and 31 March 2019, bringing to 216 the total number of claimants who have lost this financial assistance, according to Department for Communities reports.
Housing Executive research has found that reclassifying the areas used to set benefit levels for private tenants could have serious affordability impacts on young people in Northern Ireland.
