Housing: Benefits not keeping up with rent rises - charity

One survey suggest there were almost no private rental properties in Wales that were affordable using housing benefits

People are being made homeless because housing benefits are not keeping up with rental costs, charities have said.

A survey in February of private properties advertised for rent in Wales found that only 32 out of 2,638 could be covered by housing benefits.

The Bevan Foundation, which conducted the survey has said the UK government needs to increase benefits.

The UK government said it gave a £1bn boost to housing benefit rates in 2020 and maintained that level ever since.

People who claim housing benefit or the housing element of Universal Credit for privately rented properties get an amount determined by a formula called the Local Housing Allowance (LHA).

It was designed to cover rental costs for the cheapest 30% of private properties in a given area, but it has been frozen since April 2020, despite rents continuing to increase.

In the year to April, private sector rents in Wales rose by 4.8%, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) - the biggest annual percentage increase since the ONS started measuring the data in Wales in 2010.

The charities say the pressure in the private rental market is intense - rents have increased sharply in Wales at a time when the wider cost of living price rises are also putting budgets under strain.

That is why they are calling on the UK government to increase the rates for housing related benefits, which have been frozen since April 2020, leaving many claimants with a shortfall.

They say that is driving many people into homelessness. There are more than 10,000 people in temporary accommodation in Wales - that can often mean bed and breakfast type establishments without cooking or laundry facilities.

But the UK government says it gave housing benefits a big cash boost in 2020 and has maintained that funding level in subsequent years, as well as providing billions more in help with other cost of living pressures like energy bills.

Debbie Thomas, head of policy in Wales for Crisis, said: "Rents are really difficult and it's really hard for people to find the money to keep a roof over their heads."

She said the UK government needed to "to get with the times, to get with the soaring cost of living so that people can start to use housing benefit for what it's meant to be for, to have somewhere safe you can call home".

The Bevan Foundation's Dr Steffan Evans said the current situation left people with "really difficult choices" which risk them over-extending financially or settling for "really poor-quality accommodation because that's all they can afford".

Dr Evans said more than 10,000 people in Wales were living in temporary accommodation, a figure which had increased by 25% in the past 12 months, with "the problem around LHA is absolutely one of the drivers of that".

The UK government said the April 2020 LHA increased provided more than "a million people with an extra £600 a year on average".

"The UK government is also giving an extra £50m to help people in Wales with essential costs," it added.