RESEARCH shows there is a shortfall between housing benefits payments and the actual cost of renting.
Data released by homelessness charity Crisis and property website Zoopla shows low-income renters are facing a housing deficit due to soaring rents and the freeze on housing benefit.
The research finds that, at the start of 2022, one in four private renters in England – 1.2 million households – were reliant on housing benefit to keep a roof over their heads.
By contrast, analysis of Zoopla listings finds fewer than one in eight properties available for rent last year were affordable to those in receipt of housing benefit.
In Wokingham, the findings suggest 29% of one bed properties were affordable to those on the one bed Local Housing Allowance rate, 15% of two bed properties and 10% of 3 bed properties.
Matt Downie, Crisis chief executive, said: “It is deeply troubling that the poorest households in England are being forced to fight over a meagre number of affordable homes or stump up thousands they simply don’t have in order to find somewhere to live.
“We cannot sit idly by as people are left to battle against an increasingly turbulent and suffocating rental market while housing benefit – the only lifeline they have – is patently insufficient and unable to meet their needs.
“Enough is enough.”
The problem is particularly acute for one bed properties, with almost half of local authorities last year having fewer than 20 listings for one-bed homes on Zoopla that could be afforded using housing benefit.
Data shows the average shortfall for one bed homes would be £648 a year – whereas for two and three bed homes, the averages are £1,052 and £1,655 respectively.
In Sunderland, 8% of one bed properties listed would be covered in full by housing benefit, this rises slightly to 9% in Cornwall while in Salford, where rental increases have been sharpest, just 4% of properties are affordable to struggling households.
Crisis and Zoopla are now calling on the government to invest in housing benefit in the autumn budget to prevent thousands from being pushed into homelessness.
