Alert Briefing: Homelessness and the Cost of Living Crisis

Shelter are seeing alarming signs in our services that the continued freeze on housing benefits is pushing more and more private renters towards homelessness.

Private rents have increased at their fastest ever rate in the cost of living crisis. But because housing benefit is frozen while rents soar, private renters accrue rent arrears which put them at risk of homelessness. More and more of the people we see in our services are approaching us with arrears which leave them at risk of losing their home and other debts which compound their financial precarity. And local authority resources for assisting people struggling with housing costs are rapidly being depleted in the face of overwhelming demand.

The local housing allowance (LHA) which determines the amount of support with housing costs that private renters can receive has been frozen since 2020. In the face of a homelessness crisis which is leaving families in expensive and unhealthy temporary accommodation for years at a time, the government must use the Spring Budget to:

• Restore the local housing allowance so that it covers at least the cheapest third of rents in each area

• Commit to re-linking the Local Housing Allowance for future years so that it continues to prevent private renters from homelessness over time