Changes to supported housing could put people with mental health problems on the streets.

People with mental health issues living in short-term housing could see the support they receive put in ‘jeopardy’ by the roll out of Universal Credit according to a leading charity.

RETHINK surveyed 117 members working in housing services, most of whom said they feared the service they offered would be forced to close by changes to funding.

Under Universal Credit funding for stays in supported housing of only a few weeks duration will be increasingly hard to find, forcing claimants to fall back on hard pressed council services.

As a result, people living with defined mental health problems may face longer stays in hospital as they wait for a placement and may end up on the streets if one cannot be found.

Sean Duggan, chief executive of the Mental Health Network, told Mental Health Today that supported housing plays ‘a crucial role in preventing homelessness for people with mental health issues'.

He added that under the proposals people living in short-term supported housing will have ‘no guarantee their housing costs will be met', forcing them to ‘live from day to say' without any security.

The legislation to introduce Universal Credit was passed in 2011 and the amalgamation of several separate benefits into a single payment was scheduled to be rolled out in 2017.

Its introduction has been delayed by IT problems and in those areas where Universal Credit has been implemented beset by concerns that the housing element is forcing vulnerable people into debt and the risk of becoming homeless.

Labour MP Frank Field, a long-term advocate of benefit reform, described Universal Credit as ‘a shambles; leaving a trail of destruction in its wake'.

Once full implementation has been achieved seven million claimants will be covered by Universal Credit and it will account for £63billion in government spending.

Commenting in Mental Health Today on the likely impact of the changes Danielle Hamm, assistant director for campaigns and policy at RETHINK said ‘supported housing is a lifeline for people living with mental illness’.

She called on the government to ‘reconsider this potentially disastrous funding model' and to treat ‘short-term’ tenancies ‘as just that, as weeks not years'