Emmaus, the homeless charity that works, is launching a petition today to keep night shelters across the UK open.
Many night shelters are at risk of closure due to the loss of housing benefit income. This follows a legal ruling in Wales that denied housing benefit to an individual staying in a night shelter, on the grounds that it could not properly be considered the man’s home, as he was not able to leave his possessions on site and had no automatic right to stay there from one night to the next.
As a result of this legal ruling, made by Judge S. Wright on 6 Feburary 2013 in the Upper Tribunal Court, a number of councils are now reviewing their housing benefit policy and some have already suspended housing benefit payments to night shelters.
According to a recent report, one night shelter in Salford, Narrowgate a 28-bed shelter, has already been forced to close. Narrowgate said that although Salford only informed them of its decision on 24 April, it told them it would not honour any unpaid claims brought since the date of the judgment on 6 February. Narrowgate said it had been left with a £20,000 bill. The church-run shelter said that £15 of the £25 nightly cost of a bed was met through housing benefit, meaning the shelter was no longer financially viable. It closed on 29 April and made five staff redundant.
Although the judge in the Anglesey case ruled the case ‘turned on its particular facts’, a number of councils are taking the decision as case law and applying it to shelters in their area. It is even more concerning as the effect of the so-called “bedroom tax” begin to bite.
I hope that South Cambridgeshire District Council will not be following suit.
A spokesperson for the Department for Work and Pensions said it believed the judgment did not set a precedent, and said that how councils interpreted the ruling was a “local decision”. (Now where have I heard that before ?)
The spokesperson went on to say that: “In this case the tribunal found that because the shelter was only available on a first come, first served basis and claimants couldn’t remain in the property during the day, it didn’t satisfy the criteria for housing benefit to be paid. The tribunal was clear that their decision didn’t change the law and housing benefit may be payable to claimants living in other shelters.”
However, there is no doubt growing confusion about this ruling, and is putting pressure on the DWP to clarify how local authorities should respond.
Many shelters depend on housing benefit income to stay open, so this ruling could have wide-reaching consequences for emergency homelessness provision as dozens of shelters now face the threat of closure.
Although this does not directly affect Emmaus, many companions at some stage have used night shelter services. We have created a change.org petition, led by John Gall from Emmaus Cambridge, to urge Lord Freud, the DWP minister responsible for housing benefit, to take prompt action to ensure that night shelters are not forced to close.
John offered to lend his support to the campaign, saying: “As someone who was homeless for best part of a decade, I know first-hand the devastating impact this can have on people’s physical and mental health. Night shelters were a crucial refuge for me when I had nowhere else to go. I’m still in touch with a night shelter in Chichester which supported me when I needed their help the most.”
Please consider signing the petition and sharing it with your networks.
I have signed the petition and am sharing it with you. Please do the same. Thank you.
For more information about this issue, see:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/may/15/benfits-rule-closing-night-shelters