Shelter has slammed the Chancellor for failing to raise Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates in his spring Budget.

The homeless charity says Jeremy Hunt could have put an end to spiralling homelessness, but instead, he has stuck his head in the sand.

“Yet again we have a Budget that does nothing to help struggling renters who are drowning in debt and rapidly rising rents,” says chief executive Polly Neate (main picture).

Outrageous

“It is outrageous that the government has chosen to keep housing benefit frozen at 2020 levels when its own figures show rents have risen by more than 8% in this time.”

Housing benefits or universal credit payments are capped by LHA rates which are designed to provide people with enough support through the benefits system to afford the cheapest 30% of housing in an area.

However, with increasingly higher rents during the last two years, more than half (54%) of renters claiming housing benefits have to cover a shortfall in their payments, according to Shelter.

Neate adds: “Sleeping rough or being shunted from hostel-to-hostel ruins people’s lives and costs the economy more. This is the government’s final warning to introduce emergency measures to keep people in their homes – it must urgently unfreeze housing benefit.”

Shelter reports that the number of households living in temporary accommodation has risen by 87% in the last 10 years - from just over 50,000 to nearly 100,000 - while more than 44% of private renting adults in England – equivalent to 3.6 million people – say rising living costs are making them more worried about becoming homeless.