How targeted Discretionary Housing Payments reduced temporary accommodations at Redbridge Council

The rise in temporary accommodations called for a data driven Discretionary Housing Payment campaign to prevent evictions

For every 50 households in London, one lives in Temporary Accommodation (TA). Nearly 170,000 Londoners live in TA in 2024, making the capital the epicentre of the housing crisis.

For families, moving into TA negatively impacts their lives. Often people must live in unseparated rooms, sharing bathroom facilities, typically without a kitchen or internet. When moved out of the borough, families are uprooted from their jobs, schools and communities.

For councils, the 15% rise in residents owed homelessness duty places strain on budgets. London councils spend £90 million each month on TA, and are forecasted to have a £150 million overspend on TA in 2024, due to the rises in those appearing homeless.

Like most councils, LB Redbridge had seen a rise in TA households. As part of their housing strategy the council aims to “support its most vulnerable residents through early intervention and prevention services.”

One way to help those at risk of homelessness and prevent evictions is through targeted Discretionary Housing Payments (DHP).

In the campaign’s first phase, the Benefit Service and Rent Collection teams sought to target their DHP spend on resident with rent arrears, living in council tenancies or TA.

When a household falls into debt their affordability is reduced greatly, making them at risk of eviction and falling into TA.

DHPs can be used to cover rent arrears, enabling households to pay their rents in full, and stay in their homes for longer. If a household is already in TA, a DHP can help them afford moving out of TA by reducing their debts.

Targeted DHP strategies require the use of a data driven tool offering one view of a household’s financial constraints and multiple debts. Without this, proactively identifying those at risk of crisis would resource intensive.

Disrupting the evictions cycle by identifying and engaging households in rent arrears with proactive support

LIFT offers a single view of key tenure, poverty and debt indicators that can help officers deliver their housing strategies. Using the LIFT platform, LB Redbridge used data to identify financially vulnerable families for DHPs. They followed three simple steps:

Step 1: Identified over 1,200 households in arrears and at risk of homelessness for targeted support

Combined datasets, together with LIFT’s built in expert policy engine, painted a clearer picture of residents’ debts, tenure, and benefits eligibility.

LIFT’s allowed the council to filter down to the households that were in rent arrears and at risk of eviction. In two clicks, the teams used LIFT to identify 1,289 households living in council tenancies or TA with rent arrears.

Step 2: Letter sent to residents inviting them to surgeries for help to clear rent arrears

LIFT data helped to make the team’s existing workload more impactful. Armed with this information, the teams sent letters advising residents of their arrears and that assistance may be available to clear their debts.

Each household was invited to one of three events in January 2024. Events were hosted in areas of high footfall with good transportation links, so residents can easily reach them.

Step 3: Gave in person support for DHP application and benefits checks using Policy in Practice’s Better Off Calculator

Receiving a DHP is life changing for those struggling to pay their rent. Yet, there are a number of digitally excluded resident who struggle to apply.

To reduce complexity the council designed a shorter DHP paper application for the events. This form was pre-populated for council tenants, whose data they already had on council systems. These revised applications halved the time for processing DHP applications.

As part of the DHP application, officers first began by checking that each resident was claiming all eligible benefits, using Policy in Practice’s Better Off Calculator. No other calculator compares the value of a resident’s current benefits to the potential value of all the support they’re eligible for.

This helped officers to clearly see whether households were receiving their correct housing amounts of Housing Benefit or Universal Credit. It also enabled further work around income maximisation and budgeting.

Then, officers offered a variety of matching debt repayment plans to encourage households to tackle their debts. Matching debt repayment plans are arrangements where a DHP is offered to clear a household’s arrears only after they make consecutive payments towards their debts.