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GreenSquare is backing Welfare Action Week by calling on ministers to rethink changes to housing benefit rules that could push many local people into hardship.

Welfare Action Week is a national week of action starting on 10 October, organised by the National Housing Federation, the trade body for housing associations, to raise awareness of the harsh reality of the Government’s proposed welfare changes.

Hundreds of housing associations across the country will be participating in this week of action.

Under the Welfare Reform Bill, which is going through Parliament, the Government is proposing to cut benefit for social housing tenants deemed to have a ‘spare bedroom’ – even if they have lived in the property for decades.

An estimated 670,000 people living in social housing who are of working-age and claim Housing Benefit will receive an average cut of £676 per year.

It will hit people with disabilities hardest. Foster carers will lose out too, even if their ‘spare room’ is being used by fostered children.

Separately, the Government wants to scrap tenants’ right to have their housing benefit paid directly to their landlord. Removing the most convenient way for tenants to pay their rent is likely to lead to increased personal debt and arrears.

The Government is also proposing to introduce a cap on the overall amount of benefit that people can claim.

Families will be amongst the hardest hit as the cap takes no account of the huge variation in housing costs across the country.

As a result of the proposed changes, many tenants will have to choose between going into debt or moving away from work, family and support networks.

The policies are expected to be introduced in April 2013.

As a first step, Ann Cornelius Managing Director of Westlea Housing Association, one of GreenSquare’s subsidiary organisations:

• is meeting with local MP Robert Buckland asking that he supports this campaign and lobbies against these measures in Parliament; and
• has also written to the Welfare Reform Minister, Lord Freud, calling on him to drop these changes.

David Ashmore, chief executive of GreenSquare Group, said:“GreenSquare takes the welfare of our tenants very seriously and is concerned that these measures could cause a lot of hardship for a lot of local people.

“The Government must reconsider these proposals immediately. They would put many tenants into financial difficulties and in many cases force families to move to find cheaper accommodation away from places of work and schools.”

[published online 10/10/11]