Blog
The ‘Bedroom Tax’ and other changes on the horizon..
Some big changes to the welfare system have been introduced since we last posted, and we’re seeing this reflected in the enquiries people are bringing to Hackney Citizens Advice Bureau. You can see on our impact map increasing numbers of people coming for advice on the bedroom tax. The ‘Bedroom Tax’ is a reduction in [...]
‘Sofa-surfing’ and young people’s hidden homelessness in Hackney
Guest post by Marike van Harskamp, manager of Homelink – a project of East London anti-poverty charity, Quaker Social Action. Tony (24) sleeps most nights on the floor, squeezed between a bed and wardrobe, in the small room his friend rents in a shared house. His friend puts him up for now. Tony has a [...]
Morning on Mare Street
This morning we hit Mare Street in Hackney to talk to people about how they have been affected by changes in Housing Benefit. We had lots of people approach us with stories about their rent shortfalls and increasing monthly housing payments that they wanted us to hear. [...]
Locked out – our latest report
We’ve put the findings from our snapshot survey together with data from research on landlord perspectives on renting to housing benefit tenants. You can download the Locked out briefing here. According to recent research by the Department for Work and Pensions, landlords are in large numbers saying that direct payments would help in agreeing to [...]
Snapshot survey – the final results
So we’ve crunched the numbers from our mammoth mystery shopping exercise to see what the market looks like for people looking for private rented properties with housing benefit. We had some final responses in, and have broken down the figures by property size. It’s a shocking picture. We did a snapshot survey of 1585 properties [...]
Finding a home to rent in Hackney: hypothetical housing benefits turn out to be just that
Usually we’re not encouraged to go trawling property websites during working hours, yet last Friday three Citizens Advice volunteers, one Young Foundation intern and I were doing just this and hunting for flats in Hackney. We were each in receipt of a hypothetical Local Housing Allowance (LHA) and aiming to better understand the private rental [...]
Snapshot Survey figures just in
We hit the phones on Friday to do a snapshot survey of properties for rent in Hackney right now. We wanted to find out what’s available in the private rented sector within the new capped housing benefit rates and whether those properties are available to rent to housing benefit tenants. With five of us calling [...]
Workshop this Friday!
Would you like to find out more about the changes to housing benefit? We’re running a workshop this Friday morning, 22nd June, on housing benefit changes and how to access help and information in Hackney. We’re thrilled that local organisation Hackney Quest have very kindly agreed to host us through their volunteer-led Family Support project! [...]
Busting myths around Housing Benefit
The headlines say one thing – but what are the facts? There have been plenty of stories in the news that might give the impression that many housing benefit claimants are receiving thousands of pounds a week and living in mansions in central London. We take a look at some of the statistics behind the [...]
Olympic evictions in the news
East London hit the headlines this week as BBC news reported on private tenants who have been asked to leave their tenancies at short notice so that their homes can be rented out to visitors to the Olympics and landlords can capitalise on increased rental demand. But with the Olympic ceremony kicking off the sporting [...]