Austerity hollowed out provision and hardened eligibility rules. A broken safety net now shuts out the poorest and drives rising homelessness

Moral logic is flipped on its head in England’s benefits system, which systematically excludes the poorest people from the only housing that was ever intended for them. Social homes were supposed to be for those who couldn’t afford private rents. However, a new report by Crisis shows that, because the stock of homes has been allowed to collapse, housing associations now ration supply by applying strict affordability tests. The homeless charity found that seven in 10 people with a history of rent arrears and no repayment plan would “sometimes” or “always” be excluded from housing registers. Perversely, England’s welfare system induces the very homelessness that it claims to alleviate.

Financial checks, along with rules requiring “local connections”, sharply narrow who can join the queue for social housing. For those who do, a further round of pre-tenancy checks means that about a third of housing associations refuse accommodation because applicants cannot afford even modest rents, a problem rooted in benefit levels that are simply too low. Homelessness therefore rises by design rather than accident. Its origins lie in the coalition’s austerity programme: instead of building social homes, which would have eased pressure on welfare, the government redefined who could qualify. The then chancellor George Osborne, it was said, resisted building houses that might create Labour voters.

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