This is our first frontline snapshot, which we will put out on a quarterly basis to highlight some of the barriers that guests and caseworkers are facing.

What are some of the biggest barriers our guests and caseworkers currently face?

When supporting guests towards safe and secure accommodation, our caseworkers notice some of the same barriers coming up again and again which make the whole process harder. Below are three of the most significant issues that they have noticed recently, with some of our ideas on what can be done to address them.

Under-35s getting stuck in supported housing

Over the last few years, we have seen a consistent trend of more people aged 18-34 coming to us for support in increasingly desperate situations. One of the main reasons people in this age group are struggling is that most of them are only entitled to a lower rate of housing benefit, making it much more difficult for them to find housing. You can read more about this in a blog from earlier this year.

One way we have been able to support under-35s when private rented accommodation cannot be found is to refer those with low support needs to Community Interest Companies (CICs) that provide supported housing.

However, the way the benefits system works has made it challenging for people who no longer need supported accommodation to move on with their lives. If someone in supported accommodation works more than 16 hours a week, they will be expected to cover the bill for the accommodation on their own, but this bill is likely to be much higher than what they can realistically earn.

Without being able to work enough hours to start saving money, those living in supported accommodation will find it extremely difficult to ever find a home in the private rental market.

This combination of factors means that many of our guests who would like to work and live independently are unable to, and have no route out of supported accommodation.

Boguslaw, Co-Head of Casework, says:

“Supported accommodation should act as a jumping off point for people who have experienced homelessness to get their lives back on track and move towards a stable living situation and employment. Unfortunately, the way it works currently means that far too many people get stuck in the supported accommodation system rather than being able to use it as a stepping stone."

There are a number of ways the government could address this issue. Accommodation projects that give young people a secure place to stay while allowing them to work and save up money could be very beneficial. Adjusting the structure of housing benefits so under-35s are not put in such a disadvantageous position could also help. On a more fundamental level, if serious steps were taken to make the private rented sector more affordable overall, a lot of people would be able to avoid getting trapped in unsuitable accommodation or stuck in unnecessary supported accommodation.

Retaliatory Section 21 evictions

Section 21 ‘no-fault’ evictions not only directly lead to homelessness, but also have an extremely damaging indirect impact on the quality of private rented housing. Very often, tenants who complain about problems with their houses find themselves issued with eviction notices. People hear stories about these evictions, and this leads to others being too scared to bring up issues with their landlords, since they are worried that they could be evicted too.

There is a particular type of revenge eviction which is illegal – a landlord cannot evict their tenant if the local authority has issued them with an improvement notice. However, this only rules out a relatively small proportion of the real number of retaliatory evictions. Because it is so easy for tenants to be evicted without any reason being given, they occur all the time.

“I regularly see people who have been pushed into homelessness by a Section 21 eviction after they complained about their house not being in a fit condition”, says Joe, one of our caseworkers. “Sadly, some landlords would rather get rid of a tenant who complains instead of fixing the problem."

The solution to this problem is a relatively simple one: to ban Section 21 evictions without any loopholes, and to take strong action against illegal evictions.

Fortunately, some good progress towards the banning of Section 21 has been made recently, with the introduction of the Renters’ Rights Bill to Parliament. What is important now is that the government pushes the bill forwards and does not allow the Section 21 ban to be watered-down or delayed. 

Read more about why we think Section 21 evictions should be banned here. 

The benefit cap 

The cap on the total amount of benefits that someone can receive has a negative impact on many of our guests. The cap is slightly higher in London than the rest of the country, but not enough to make up for how much higher London rents are. The benefit cap is more than 10 years old, but because it has not been consistently raised to keep up with inflation, many more people are affected by it now than were previously.

There has been quite a bit of discussion and campaigning in recent years about housing benefit rates – specifically the Local Housing Allowance (LHA), which was un-frozen after a number of years, following a campaign by the Cover the Cost campaign (which we are part of). Unfortunately, many of our guests who are struggling, and would have been greatly helped by the LHA increase, did not actually receive the extra money because of the benefit cap.

The cap makes it much harder for people to find accommodation that they can afford, and often adds to the difficulties that our guests experience when trying to leave homelessness.

Some groups of people are exempt from the cap – notably people of pension age, people in receipt of Working Tax Credit, and people with (or who care for someone with) disabilities.

"A lot of the private rented accommodation that is available is listed as ‘uncapped’ which means that people are expected to pay from their personal disability allowance or additional benefits”, says Caroline, a caseworker at Glass Door. “Often, these properties have not been adapted for the extra needs that an older person or someone with disabilities has, and so it's become another way for landlords to charge higher rents without providing a better service."