The National Housing Federation (NHF) said the shortage was hitting home ownership rates and boosting rents.

The government says it has made more public land available for building.

It is also investing £4.5bn in new lower-cost homes over four years – but NHF said this represented a cut of 63%.

“More government investment in affordable housing would stimulate a wider, faster economic recovery and help fix our broken housing markets,” the NHF said.

Housing Minister Grant Shapps said his plans would “get Britain building again”.

“That’s why I’ve announced plans to release thousands of acres of public land for housebuilding.

“And despite the need to tackle the deficit we inherited, this government is putting £4.5bn towards an affordable homes programme which is set to exceed our original expectations and deliver up to 170,000 new homes over the next four years.”

‘Expensive and unregulated’

The rate of home ownership has declined in recent years due to the level of house prices, the need for larger deposits and stricter lending criteria set by banks, the National Housing Federation said.

Research it commissioned from Oxford Economics suggests that the proportion of home ownership in England, which has been falling steadily for the last 10 years, could decline further from its current rate of 67% to 63.8% over the next decade.

But with rents rising, and more than 1.5 million people on waiting lists for social housing in England, it is also the lack of affordable alternatives to home ownership that is worrying to the NHF and others.

“Millions of people across the country remain desperate for an affordable place to live, with more and more forced into expensive and unregulated private rented accommodation,” said Campbell Robb, chief executive of housing charity Shelter.

“With major developers holding planning permission for at least 188,000 new homes, the government must urgently look at ways to get construction going.

This will not only create jobs and drive growth but will deliver the homes people desperately need.”

‘Generation rent’

Oxford Economics predicts that average rents will jump by almost 20% over the next five years.

Matt Griffith of campaign group priceout.org said young people in particular now faced the “toughest housing environment in decades”.

“This is producing a lose-lose for ‘generation rent’,” he told the BBC News website.

“Squeezed incomes from rent rises, inflation and stagnant wages are making saving for a deposit difficult.

“We have a slump in house building levels whilst government efforts to stop declines in the wider housing market benefits existing owners over those priced out of the market,” he said.

Mr Shapps said that he was determined to “pull out all the stops” to help first-time buyers.

“That’s why I’ve held summits with lenders to encourage them to do more to help people take their first step onto the housing ladder, and I’ve launched the FirstBuy scheme as a valuable alternative to the ‘Bank of Mum and Dad’ for those struggling to get together that much-needed deposit.”

Announced in the Budget, the £250m scheme aims to help up to 10,000 people buy their first home by helping them out with a deposit.

Those buying properties from some developers could receive a loan worth up to 20% of the value of the home from the government and the housebuilder.

Pricedout.org said only a small number of those wanting to buy would be helped.

But it praised government proposals to change the planning system to try to encourage more commericial residential housing.

The National Housing Federation also said last month’s draft National Planning Policy Framework, which aims to simplify the planning system, was “a step forward”.

“We share the concerns raised in the letter and have repeatedly warned the Government that its welfare reforms will lead to a surge in homelessness. Families will be amongst the hardest hit as the cap takes no account of the huge variation in housing costs across the country. 

“The Communities and Local Government Department rightly identifies that the benefit cap will also reduce the number of family homes which are built over the next four years. At a time of record waiting lists this is something we as a country simply cannot afford to let happen.

“Ministers must revisit their proposals on the benefits cap and make a public commitment that thousands of vulnerable people will not be forced out of their homes.”

This article originally appeared in The Observer, Sunday 20 June 2011.

A hundred thousand disabled children will lose out when a crucial welfare benefit is halved under controversial reforms.

Parents can now receive a maximum of £54 a week through tax credits to help with the extra cost of looking after a child with disabilities. But under the welfare reform bill, passed by the Commons last week, that benefit will form part of universal credit and be cut to £27 a week, plunging thousands of families below the poverty line, according to the Children’s Society.

The government says the money saved will allow it to offer larger sums to children with severe disabilities. However, the Children’s Society said some families would lose £1,400 a year. It is claimed this could cost families with a child born with a disability about £22,000 by the time the child reaches 16. The government says it will provide transitional payments to ensure people do not lose out, but the guarantee does not extend to new claimants and will not be protected from inflation. Cash protection will also be lost through as yet undefined changes in a family’s circumstances.

Antony Best, 23, whose wife died of swine flu in January, leaving him responsible for three children under four, two of whom have disabilities, said the change would mean he would struggle to run the car he needs to take them to hospital. Best, from Bradford, said: “I receive £197 a month through credits and disability allowance for help with my eldest child, who has Down’s syndrome, and I am applying for help with my youngest son, who has cerebral palsy. Without it I wouldn’t be able to put anything in a fund for their futures and I don’t know how I would run the car. It would have a huge impact.”

Bob Reitemeier, chief executive of the Children’s Society, called for the government to halt the reforms. “This cut threatens to push many disabled children back below the poverty line,” he said “With 100,000 children affected by this, there are 100,000 reasons to rethink this policy.”

The revelation follows angry exchanges in the Commons over welfare changes which are set to see 7,000 cancer victims lose their benefits. On Friday a Tory MP, Philip Davies, was condemned for suggesting disabled people should be allowed to work for less than the minimum wage to make them more attractive to employers.

The bill will hit hundreds of thousands of disabled people by cutting their housing benefit. Under the proposals, 670,000 social housing tenants with a “spare room” will lose an average £676 a year because their homes will be deemed too large for their needs. Two-thirds of those who will be affected – about 450,000 people – are disabled according to the government’s impact assessment. Up to 200,000 of those receive disability living allowance and about 100,000 live in homes adapted to their needs.

The proposed housing benefit cuts mean many tenants will go into debt and others will have to move, says the National Housing Federation’s chief executive, David Orr: “The cuts to housing benefit are extremely harsh. Under-occupation in the social housing sector should be tackled, but slashing people’s housing benefit and pushing them into poverty is not the answer.”

Richard Hawkes, chief executive of disability charity Scope, said: “Cuts to child benefit, disability living allowance reforms and the impact of local authority budget cuts are all having a cumulative effect that could risk pushing thousands more families into poverty as a result.”

The Department for Work and Pensions said: “Our reforms don’t necessarily mean that people will need to move and our discretionary housing payment fund will provide a safety net for those who need it, with £130m invested over four years to smooth the transition. We will ensure there are no cash losers when people are moved to universal credit. We have increased the number of children eligible for the higher rate of disability support, and the introduction of universal credit will lift a million people, including 350,000 children, out of poverty.”

During yesterday’s debate, DWP Under-secretary Maria Miller said: “I assure the House that I fully understand those arguments. I agree that it might not make sense to move someone from their home if they have already had significant adaptations. Replicating such changes would impose unnecessary costs. We are not interested in shifting costs from one budget to another. However, as we previously set out, we cannot take the broad-brush approach…”

“As I said in Committee, ‘it is not our intention to put something in place that would have a disproportionate impact on disabled people. If someone has had their property adapted because of their disability, it makes no sense to move them to a different property and spend more money on costly adaptations’.”

“I concluded that a “blanket exemption” was not the best approach and that we would need to consider “how we can best target the help at people, while keeping in mind the practical difficulties of identifying… where accommodation has been adapted”.––[Official Report, Welfare Reform Public Bill Committee, 3 May 2011; c. 687.]”

“We acknowledge the concerns that have been highlighted, but this amendment goes much further than was suggested even by the sector itself. I hope that, in the light of my comments, hon. Members will look again at the amendments and agree to withdraw them.”

After the debate, John Pierce, campaigns officer for the Federation said: “This is disappointing however the Federation will continue with its campaign to ensure that the most vulnerable within our society are protected from these proposals”.

Foster carers risk losing up to £700 a year in housing benefit under coalition cuts, which, campaigners claim, will deter families from housing vulnerable children.

Under new rules drawn up by ministers, families in receipt of housing benefit who have properties with spare bedrooms will be penalised – losing the proportion of benefit that applies to the spare rooms. The measure is designed to encourage social housing tenants to downsize, freeing up properties for larger families. However, it means that bedrooms used by foster children will also be deemed surplus and ineligible for financial support. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) insists the change will be fairer since payments made to foster families include a housing element.

The plans will be a further blow to foster family incomes already hit by rising food, fuel and travel costs.

The Fostering Network said that carers living in social housing should not have to subsidise the housing costs of children “out of their own pockets”. Its chief executive, Robert Tapsfield, said: “Fostered children need to have their own bedrooms in almost all circumstances, so these proposals will put foster carers in social housing under real financial pressure.”

He added: “These plans will also make it even more difficult for families in social housing to become foster carers at a time when we urgently need more people to come forward.” It is estimated that an extra 10,000 foster carers are needed in the UK.

Foster family allowances, depending on a child’s age and local authority, can range from £125 a week for babies to more than £250 for a 16- to 18-year-old in London. Under the housing benefit changes, a claimant with one “spare room” is expected to receive a 13 per cent cut, with the payment reduced by 23 per cent for two or more spare rooms. Claimants, on average, could lose £676 a year.

The National Housing Federation (NHF) estimates 670,000 people may be affected by the clampdown on under-occupancy. According to official statistics, five million people in England are on the social housing waiting list but almost one million spare bedrooms are paid for by housing benefit.

The NHF chief executive, David Orr, said: “Ministers have failed to think through the potentially disastrous implications of imposing an under-occupation penalty on so many different groups of tenants. Under-occupation in the social housing sector should be tackled. But slashing peoples’ housing benefit and pushing them into poverty is not the answer.”

Yvonne Crook and her husband, Allan, foster her three grandchildren, and also provide respite care and emergency placements for other children, in their three-bedroom home in St Helens. She condemned the plans: “If the children find out, they will think this is not a home for me, it’s not my bedroom. This money that they are planning to take is spent on the children. These children have been neglected and abused in the past, they don’t need to be short of anything in their lives now.”

The DWP insisted foster carers do an “important job” but their personal allowance “already takes into account housing needs, and any income they earn over and above the benefit they receive is completely disregarded”.

The changes are contained in the Welfare Reform Bill, which is expected to complete its passage through the Commons tomorrow. However, many of the benefit changes proposed by Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, remain controversial.

Last week, David Cameron was criticised by Lib Dem MPs over plans to increase the state pension age to 66 by 2020 – six years earlier than previously planned – and to accelerate the rate at which women’s pension age is increased to 65 in line with men’s. Senior Lib Dems are increasingly uneasy about a plan to cap all benefits at £26,000 per family.

He said:

‘Following Lord Freud’s comments this week that spare bedrooms for people in social housing are a luxury, can we have a statement from the Work and Pensions Secretary so that he can confirm that a widow who has lived in the same two-bedroom house all her life now faces having her housing benefit cut, and may therefore be forced to move? If that is the case, where will she be expected to move to? The National Housing Federation says that while 180,000 social tenants in England are “under-occupying” two-bedroom homes, only 68,000 one-bedroom social homes become available for letting each year.’

The Leader of the House, Sir George Young MP, responded:

‘I have announced two days’ debate on welfare reform in which there may be an opportunity to debate those [changes], but there are transitional funds available to help people in situations such as the right hon. Gentleman described who might otherwise be caught by the proposed cap.’

MPs will debate the remaining stages of the Welfare Reform Bill on 13 and 15 June.

There are just a few days left to lobby your MP on the proposals. If you have five minutes to spare, email your MP today.

A massive shake-up in housing benefit means claimants may need huge loans to keep their homes. Housing charity chiefs say up to 670,000 claimants will have to borrow £700 a year under planned changes. And The National Housing Federation fears high interest rates from doorstep lenders mean low income families face repaying £1,274 a year or more.

The Government aims to encourage council and housing association tenants to move to smaller homes by slashing their benefits. It wants to cut it 13 per cent for those with one spare room and 23 per cent for those with two or more. But many have lived in their flats and houses for decades and only have spare rooms because kids have grown up and left.

The income of the average tenant in social housing is just £8,320 a year.

NHF chief David Orr said: “This is harsh and regressive. People unable to make up the shortfall may be sucked into poverty and spiralling levels of debt.”

Thousands of disabled people could be priced out of their homes under government plans to reduce the housing benefit payable to people in council and housing association homes (Disabled marchers turn out in thousands for benefits protest, 12 May). The government’s own assessment reveals that 450,000 people with disabilities are set to undergo a cut averaging £676 per year. Many have received intensive support from local authorities to find homes that meet their needs, homes which in many cases will no longer be affordable under the new restrictive size criteria.

Take action: email your MP

The resulting upheaval will not only have a profound emotional impact on those leaving their homes, but may also cost the taxpayer more as a result. Research from the National Housing Federation estimates that 108,000 of those due to be penalised have had their homes adapted to allow them to live with some degree of independence.

If disabled people are forced out of their homes they will need to have their new property adapted in the same way – often at the taxpayers’ expense – and the bill is likely to run into millions of pounds. This punitive measure will hit vulnerable tenants and leave the taxpayer to pick up the tab. We are calling on the government to reconsider the proposed penalty and look again at what the true costs of pushing ahead with it would be.

David Orr
Chief executive, National Housing Federation

Mark Baker
Co-chair, Disability Benefits Consortium

This article originally appeared on The Mirror, Friday 06 May 2011

Plans to force single council house tenants out of homes that are “too big” for them by cutting their housing benefit could cost taxpayers MORE, research reveals.

Take action: Ask your MP to stop the proposal

Proposed Government welfare reforms aim to move the 670,000 social housing tenants on housing benefit who have spare rooms into smaller flats – even if they have lived there for decades.

But the National Housing ­Federation found a UK-wide shortfall of 90,000 one-bedroom social homes for people who will be forced out of their two-bed properties. If they end up in the private sector, rent would be higher and they would be paid a higher rate of housing benefit.

Tenants with one spare room who decide not to move would lose up to 15% of their housing benefit and those with two or more could lose 25% from April 2013. They would have to pay any rent shortfall themselves.

The Department for Work and Pensions admits anyone unable to find a smaller property in their area “may have to look further afield or move to the private sector”.

Federation chief David Orr said: “Under-occupation should be tackled, but pushing people into poverty is not the answer.”

Proposed benefit changes for people living in social housing, could mean some disabled people lose their homes.

Watch video on BBC News

New rules due to come into effect in 2013 are designed to stop people staying in houses that are too large for their needs.