Social landlords in Greater Manchester have offered to run a regional pilot of an alternative to the controversial ‘Local Housing Allowance (LHA) cap’ in supported housing.
Great inititiave. Well done and good luck with this.
According to Inside Housing:
“Supported and sheltered housing providers everywhere fear government plans to cap benefit entitlement at LHA rates from 2019 could make their businesses unviable.
LHA rates are set according to the lowest 30% of local market rents, making them well below the rental cost of supported housing.
Under current proposals, councils would be given cash to top up the difference but providers have voiced concerns that this system would lead to uncertainty with new schemes under development on hold as a result.
In response to a government consultation on the proposals, the Greater Manchester Housing Providers (GMHP) group of 26 social landlords, has proposed using a national rate to set rents in supported housing, calculated based on typical costs of running schemes, instead of LHA.
This would make providers in low-rent areas less reliant on council top-ups and would better reflect the cost of supported housing, which does not change greatly based on local market rents.”