Housing benefit reforms to start in April

Tomorrow housing workers and their tenants will face the start of a two-year package of reforms to housing benefit.

The new housing benefit caps for people in the private rented sector and the move to cut the number of properties people can choose from will have an immediate impact on families looking to find a new rented home.

There is also a change to the levels of housing benefit that people in both the social and private sectors will receive if they have adult children at home.

From 1 April, tenants sharing their home with other adults will need to collect more money from them to contribute towards the rent, or make up the difference from their own money. This will be an incentive to tenants to encourage their children to leave home and could also lead to greater risks of rent arrears.

Sarah Webb, chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH), said: "People are going to have their options about where they can live cut significantly and it is likely that demand for the properties that remain available will be squeezed further.

"Government has argued that rents will fall as a result of the measures. There is no evidence at this time to suggest that landlords will respond to the changes by cutting their rents. Indeed, the latest surveys from across the sector suggest that rents are going up as demand outstrips supply and the number of new homes being built continues to be half of the level needed.

"Where tenants face significant shortfalls the choice is going to be stark, find money from somewhere else or move. Given these are people on low incomes their ability to save by cutting back on other items is severely limited."

Webb concluded: "Ultimately, this will mean low-income families moving from the communities where they have jobs, where their children are in schools, where they having strong social networks."