FactCheck: Why IDS can’t make guarantees on homelessness
The claim
“The public thinks that homelessness is about not having any reasonable accommodation to go to, that’s not what the definition is. The definition inside government and places like Shelter is that children have to share rooms… Nobody, and I can guarantee this, nobody will be made homeless in the sense of the public’s view of it – without a home to go to – as a result of this.”
Iain Duncan Smith MP, BBC Radio 4′s Today programme, 23 January 2011
Cathy Newman checks it out
It’s what you might call a holy alliance: the Bishops have teamed up with Lib Dem and Labour peers to try and scotch the government’s plan to cap benefits at £26,000 a year. That’s equivalent to the average wage earned by working households after tax. The public is certainly on ministers’ sides. But to try and win support to their cause, charities are claiming that tens of thousands of children will be made homeless by the reforms. That’s certainly given parliamentarians pause for thought. So the work and pensions secretary decided to plunge in feet first, effectively accusing charities of scaremongering by suggesting that people can be declared “homeless” if they’re forced to put their children in shared bedrooms. That sounded a bit odd to FactCheck. Over to the team.
The background
IDS hit the airwaves this morning to defend the government’s plans to cap benefits at £26,000 per household next year as “quite fair”.
The main opposition to the bill comes from Church of England bishops who warned in a letter to The Sunday Times that “although the cap is targeted at promoting fairness between working and non-working households, evidence shows that it will hit children ten times harder than adults”.
The Children’s Society has previously warned that the reforms could make more than 80,000 children homeless and push thousands more into poverty.
Yet Mr Duncan Smith has brushed off such warnings, arguing that the public don’t understand the government’s definition of homelessness. FactCheck investigates.
The analysis
Shelter’s chief executive Campbell Robb was quick to dispute Mr Duncan Smith’s claim that the charity agreed with his definition of homelessness.
He said: “The Secretary of State said that, according to Shelter, families where children share a bedroom would be defined as homeless. This is simply not true. Shelter uses the same definition of homelessness as the government, as set out in the Housing Act 1996, passed by the last Conservative government.”
So what is the official definition of homelessness?
The 1996 Housing Act defines homelessness as having no “accommodation available” and therefore sleeping rough, but also by a broader range of circumstances that include reasons why people are unable to occupy their current home, such as because of a threat of domestic violence.
A person is classed as homeless if they can’t gain entry to their home, if their home is in “poor physical condition” or if they are likely to become homeless within 28 days. The Act further stipulates that if it isn’t “reasonable” to continue to occupy a property, then the authorities much consider them homeless.
Where does sharing a bedroom come into it?
Families aren’t considered homeless if their children are forced to share a room. This is flatly contradicted by what’s known as the ‘bedroom standard’. Under this a “bare minimum” of bedrooms is allocated to meet a family’s needs – it has been used in government since the 1960s.
According to the standard, ideally one bedroom should be allocated to: married or cohabiting couples, single people over the age of 21, pairs of children under 10 years old, or pairs of children aged 10 to 21 of the same gender.
If there are more than two children in a room, it might be classed as overcrowding, but it doesn’t render the family homeless. The statutory definition plainly states that “living rooms and even large kitchens are considered acceptable places for children to sleep”.
At the moment, 473,000 households don’t meet the standard in England, 180,000 of which live in social housing.
Only the most severe cases of overcrowding could be potentially considered by local authorities as homeless under the statutory definition.
How many people could become homeless?
Mr Robb pointed to the government’s own analysis published last February that warned the move to cap benefits would push households into rent arrears, resulting in some households having to move and others presenting as homeless to their local authority.
A year on and this warning has disappeared from the DWP’s final assessment on the basis that it will spend millions on helping people avoid homelessness and find alternative accommodation.
The assessment has instead only said it expects the number of households to be hit by the changes to be 67,000 (up from its original estimate of 50,000), with each family losing an average of £83 a week.
How many people this might push into homelessness, we don’t know. A spokesman for the DWP told FactCheck that some households may have to move but that there were “measures in place” to prevent people becoming homeless.
He said the government has provided £190m to help Local Authorities with the transitions in housing benefit, and those due to be hit with the cuts will be issued with one year’s written notice.
He also dismissed claims in a leaked memo from the office of the Communities secretary Eric Pickles that the benefits cap could see 20,000 families losing their homes.
The Department for Communities and Local Government told FactCheck today: “The leaked memo was based on old information and did not reflect the views of Eric Pickles.”
Yet the simple fact remains that if these people are unable to pay their rent, many of them will have to present themselves as homeless.
Cathy Newman’s verdict
Iain Duncan Smith is wrong to declare that children who share bedrooms could call themselves “homeless”. Overcrowded maybe, although many “squeezed middle” families wouldn’t consider putting their offspring in bunk beds a particular hardship. What’s harder to call though is how many families will genuinely be forced out of their homes. The government says 67,000 households will be affected. Charities say many will have to declare themselves homeless if they can’t afford the rent. Councils would then be obliged to find them accommodation. So on that point, Mr Duncan Smith may be right, but it’s too early to tell.
The analysis by Emma Thelwell
There are 11 comments on this post
Has no one considered that most private landlords will charge whatever the social are offering? Landlords would rather take a bit less and keep houses occupied rather than have them empty…
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This kind of pressure doesn’t always lead directly to people losing their homes. Because shelter is the number one priority for many, it can instead lead to people going without adequate food or heat in order to pay the rent. That’s less likely to be visible to the wider public, but it can have very serious health consequences, and, aside from the risk of death or long term illness, it makes people a whole lot less capable of working.
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Cathy/Emma,
Weasel words as always from a neocon minister, Tory, New Labour or Cleggy. What Smith hopes is that people will get caught up in arguing a form of words – thereby avoiding the core of the issue, which is (and has been since Thatcher’s dismal tenure) a lack of social housing.
These proposals will also guarantee higher incomes for Tory/Rachman landlords and property owner-racketeers as it leads to eviction of poorer tenants. Inevitably, it will lead to greater social separation, a trend started deliberately by the Tories way back in the 80s. In turn this will widen the gap between poor and rich, already the worst and most disgusting in Europe.
“Property owning democracy” my a**e. Same old Tory spivs and crooks.
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So once again a minister is either lying or doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
This man is supposed to be an expert. He has spent years studying the subject yet he can’t see that if you are intent on moving people out of private, expensive lets into something cheaper, it would make sense to try and rebuild the stock of social housing.
In their blind obsession with cuts, they are getting the cart before the horse. Investing in building council houses would help stimulate the economy and provide places where people could move to.
If he believes that cutting benefits is not going to have an effect, how does he account for the fact that in Yorkshire, for example, churches are opening up soup kitchens and shelters because they are being faced with increasing numbers of homeless people?
Still, I suppose if you are a millionaire with the state providing you with a second home, it’s easy to be out of touch.
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I heard our bigoted Secretary of State lie on the Today program this morning. My irritation was with the interviewer’s lack of effective challenge. Ironically, John Snows latest blog suggests a cure for this: “get stuck into the real world, it will vastly improve and deepen their journalism. We journalists are not a breed apart – we must be of the world we report.”
But on housing, ignorance has done its damage. It’s no wonder your colleague Gary Gibbon can report on our governments confidence “they know there’s massive support for the [benefit] cap amongst voters. Why wouldn’t there be when lies are peddled unabashed? Why are we not talking about rent control as an alternative to risking homelessness and uprooting children? Is it too risky for the poor property owners, too onerous to oversee, or ideologically unsound?
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my friend was happily married, always wanted a large family, husband had top paying job – own company – all good. Had the 6 children they always wanted. Husband’s very successful firm got into trouble when recession hit – eventually he had to sell and then was out of work. Huge stress on family life ended up with them separating. He could not get any work – either too old, over-qualified or too many applicants for each job. Their house was re-possessed. He ended up leaving the country to try and get work elsewhere.
She is on her own with 6 children. One has now left home. They had to wait 2 years to get a council house. It has 3 bedrooms – one of them a box room – the boy is in that one. Two older girls in one room, two younger ones in third. My friend? Sleeps on the floor in between two younger children’s beds.
Another friend in similar circumstances. Single father with custody of 2 children. One bedroom. They have the bedroom, he sleeps on the sitting room floor – has done for 6 years.
This is before any of the cuts take effect.
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I am sure it is possible to make these reforms without being so cruel, ruthless and indiscriminate.
The government talks about workshy families but am I right in thinking that the cap would apply to families on benefit who are actually in work?
Also, anyone of us could suddenly hit hard times due to losing our jobs or becomming critically ill. We would expect to be helped out if the unexpected happened and we would expect that in return for the national insurance and tax we would have paid over the years, the state would help with the rent and other costs at least for an interim period.
So instead of indiscriminately applying the cap to everyone, why not exclude working tax credits so that people in work are not affected or not as much.
Also why not defer the cap for say 2 years for new claimants who meet the criteria for contributory JSA or ESA. This would provide protection for hard working people who have hit hard times and need time to get back on their feet.
We might be troubled by the number of benefit dependents but in trying to tackle the problem are we taking away the safey net that was intended for all of us?
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If IDS really wanted to save taxpayers’ money he would cut rents, not benefits. Housing benefit all end up in landlords’ pockets, not the tenants’. Pass a new rent act curbing rents. Build new council houses at reasonable rents. Increase the minimum wage. Curb gas and electricity prices. Provide more, better-paid jobs. This is the way to get people off of benefits.
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Are we never going to end the vicious circle that results in parents trapped in a life of poverty being unable to provide a life of choice and comfort to their children? Putting economic growth before human dignity is an inhumane response to social need. Today we learn that the IMF would be comfortable with the idea of a little loosening of the purse strings. We could start with the economic stimulus of providing more social housing. And preferably tomorrow!
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This article is incorrect on several counts. It incorrectly stays: “The statutory definition plainly states that “living rooms and even large kitchens are considered acceptable places for children to sleep”.” This is not in the Housing Acts anywhere at all. Kitchens are not mentioned. See http://legislation.data.gov.uk/ukpga/1985/68/data.htm?wrap=true and http://legislation.data.gov.uk/ukpga/1996/52/data.htm?wrap=true
It also incorrectly states “Families aren’t considered homeless if their children are forced to share a room.” This can be the case if the children are not same-sex and over the age of ten. As this is classed as overcrowding, and Shelter clearly state on their website that if you are living in overcrowded conditions “you are legally classed as homeless”
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The ‘large kitchen’ measure comes from caselaw not the Housing Acts, the case in question is Zaitzeff v Olmi (1952) 102 LJ 416, CC.
The room standard does not limit the number of people of the same sex who can share a room but doesn’t allow people of different sexes over the age of ten to be ‘forced’ to share a room.
However, a household consisting of two adults and two children of different sexes wouldn’t be overcrowded by the statutory definition if they lived in a one bedroom flat because mum could share the bedroom with daughter and dad could share the living room with son, and thus not be ‘forced’ to share with members of the opposite sex. Therefore they wouldn’t be homeless by the statutory definition either.
It is very difficult to be overcrowded by the statutory definition. All this really shows is that the overcrowding standards are horrendously out of touch with modern standards of living.
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