As part of the government’s overhaul of the benefit system, which came into effect at the beginning of this month, the Social Fund has been scrapped. This is a worrying development for us here at the NextDoor Project. Most of the clients for whom we find accommodation have no savings of their own and landlords invariably require one month’s rent in advance, which we have usually be able to obtain on their behalf from the Social Fund in the form of a Crisis Loan payment.

Elements of the old social fund, such as budgeting loans, will continue to be administered by the DWP, but crisis loans are now part of a bundle of responsibilities which have been devolved to local authorities. Obtaining crisis loan money from the old Social Fund was never easy, with call centers staffed by humans delivering remarkably convincing impersonations of robots. These generally pusillanimous creatures were clearly instructed to find any reason, however spurious, to reject an application. One particularly egregious example being when a rough sleeper who I had found a studio flat  for was refused a loan on the grounds that “He has been sleeping rough for eight months, which means that he is coping very well with his situation, and is therefore not in a crisis ”. A piece of twisted logic worthy of the original Catch 22.

Accessing a Crisis Loan under the old system may have been difficult, but at least one was dealing with one centralised system and one set of rules, however obtuse. Over time I had become something of an expert at navigating my way through all obstacles and of late successful applications were becoming the norm, not the exception. Now we are dealing with up to thirty-two London Local Authority’s, each with its own set of criteria and some seemingly without any coherent policy at all.

Even where councils, such as Kennsington and Chelsea (in consort with Westminster and Hammersmith & Fulham under the new  tri-borough administrative arrangements), have got a system in place it is embryonic and there are teething problems and delays. We have been successful in accessing a payment from Westminster, which is apparently the first under the new system, but because the payment mechanism is not in place yet Z2K has had to bridge the payment, in order for our client to be placed.

I have even been told by one London borough that they will not be giving cash payments at all but food vouchers, which at the very least shows a total misunderstanding of the needs of the people for whom this money is intended. Many other boroughs are insisting on a local connection before they will consider an application.

The only good thing that can be said about the new system is that when money is given it is in the form of a grant, unlike the old social fund, which was a loan, and over time it is to be hoped that councils will evolve better systems, and a greater understanding of the needs of their clients. At the moment however, like so much of the governments wholesale changes to the benefit system, these changes are creating confusion and anxiety, with many unintended consequences and an overall impression that they have not been properly thought through.

A late flurry of activity just before Christmas meant that the 2012 ended well for the Private Rented Sector access scheme. It was particularly gratifying to move one family, a single mother who had fled domestic violence with her  two very young children and had been living in one room in emergency accommodation in Harrow for the last 12 months. I had gone there back in September to assess her and it was an utterly soulless and depressing place, although I was assured by her Social worker who had referred the family to us that she had “seen a lot worse”. The family moved into a nice two bedroom flat in Stoke Newington on Christmas Eve and the last time I spoke to them they were settling in well, with a benign landlord who had gone out of his way to make them comfortable.

Unfortunately the Christmas spirit evaporated with the season and the situation for the last few weeks has been as bleak and depressing as the weather. The early part of the year is traditionally a slow time in the rental market,  but as we get towards the end of February there should be a definite increase in supply, but so far this has failed to materialise. Alarmingly the feedback I have been getting is that Landlords who were previously happy to rent to Housing Benefit claimants are now extremely reluctant. This is because universal credit vastly increases the risk of tenants falling into arrears (see Romin’s last blog post for more details) and also the proposed abolition of crisis loans, which almost every Housing Benefit claimant uses to pay rent in advance, and without which no landlord will offer a tenancy. Continue reading →

The first task I was given on my appointment to the newly created role of Private Rented Sector Access Scheme Co-ordinator for the NextDoor Project was to think of a job title which did not require yogi like control of the breath and an ability to enunciate one’s vowels that would have impressed Professor Higgins!

So I address you now as Tenancy Support Officer; prosaic, does what it says on the tin, but elegant in its simplicity. (I should own up here and admit it was not, alas, my formulation, but Joanna, our Chief Executive). Continue reading →