Welfare reforms ‘could lead to timebomb on the homeless’

Scarborough Borough Council’s cabinet member for housing, Coun Bill Chatt, claimed the authority is struggling to get to grips with ways to combat the shake-up.

He maintained the Government’s overhaul will impact on some of the most vulnerable members of society and leave Scarborough in particular facing a homelessness timebomb.

Changes to housing support will see benefits slashed, with proposed changes set to include a cap on the amount people can claim.

Currently half of the housing stock in Scarborough is affordable to those living on benefits, although under the new rules only a third will be within reach.

Coun Chatt said: “People are going to say they can’t afford to live where they live and we will have to work out how we are going to deal with that. I’m clueless as to how we are going to support people through this problem.

“I have actually had sleepless nights over this as the responsibility for homeless people sits with district councils.

“As a cabinet member I think this is going to have a massive impact on so many people and I just don’t have a way out of it, I’m worried to death.

“I have actually sat awake at 3am thinking “how am I going to deal with it?” but it’s government policy and I have just got to accept it.”

Coun Colin Challen, who represents the town’s Castle ward, which is among the top 10 per cent of the nation’s most deprived communities, has also raised major concerns over the reforms.

He said: “For the people directly affected these cuts will come as a shock, and thousands of people in the borough will be a lot worse off.

“But we may also see an influx of people forced to leave more expensive areas – perhaps from West Yorkshire – and the pressure on local housing provision is going to be tremendous.

“The council has already seen in the last year a 50 per cent increase in housing queries and this is bound to mushroom.”

Coun Challen said the changes, which also include a cut of up to 21 per cent in council tax benefit for anyone of working age, would have a “devastating impact” on parts of his ward.

He said: “I have confidence that the council will do its best to meet this challenge, but the task looks daunting to say the least. I fear we are going to see a lot more homelessness in the borough, and that may well be accompanied by other consequences which are all too predictable.”

While efforts are being made to provide affordable housing in the area – with multi-million-pound developments underway in Whitby, Filey and Scarborough – Coun Challen said he feared the reforms would lead to a three-tier housing system.

He said: “You have got people who can afford to buy a house and people who can afford to buy affordable housing, but you have also got people in the bottom category who can never hope to even buy an affordable home. The number of people in the bottom category is going to grow quite dramatically.”

But the Department for Work and Pensions maintained it did not expect any increase in homelessness due to the housing benefit reforms.

A spokesman said: “(The reforms) are about restoring fairness to a system which has spiralled out of control and ensuring that benefit claimants make the same choices about affordability as everyone else.”

He added the most vulnerable will be exempt and an extra £130m is being made available in Discretionary Housing Payments to help local authorities and landlords.

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