Crisis’s most recent Homelessness Monitor 2019 for England highlights concerns that housing and welfare policies are increasingly leading to homelessness.
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.
In February 2019, the Board of the Housing Executive approved the draft Chronic Homelessness Action Plan, which focuses on the “Ending Homelessness Together” commitment, set out in the Homelessness Strategy 2017-2022.
The High Court in England and Wales has ruled that the government’s Universal Credit migration arrangements for people who had been in receipt of a Severe Disability Premium and who naturally migrated to Universal Credit before 16 January 2019 are unlawful.
Housing Rights is one of over 60 organisations in Northern Ireland which have joined together to express concern about the planned end in March 2020 of important mitigations which protect people from some of the harshest impacts of welfare reform.
