Charities Warn of a Looming Rent Debt Crisis.

 

A coalition of UK housing and social justice charities have warned that increasing numbers of people living in rented accommodation are falling into arrears.

 

The Resolution Foundation estimate, in figures reported by the BBC, that 750,000 people fell behind with their rent in January, a rise of 450,000 on last year.

 

Research carried out by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) in November last year found that families in the UK owed £400 million in rent arrears and that two and a half million households were fearful about not being able to pay their rent.

 

The JRF have now joined with other charities, including Crisis, Citizens Advice, the Money Advice Trust and Shelter to call on Chancellor Rishi Sunak to take action as he prepares his budget.

 

In a joint statement they highlight the fact that people living in rented housing, particular in the private sector, often work in parts of the economy that are ‘struggling due to the impact of the pandemic and are being pushed into rent arrears with no support at a time of continued uncertainty’.

 

In their joint statement the charities welcome action taken by the government to help ‘sustain tenancies in the short-term’, adding though that they do not ‘go far enough to adequately protect renters going forward’.

 

The problems caused by people being unable to work or losing their jobs due to the pandemic are something the charities cite as a major issue. Despite furlough 7.8% of UK renters were unemployed in September, this situation my well become worse as the Bank of England predicts unemployment could rise by 7.75% by the middle of this year.

 

The charities call on the government to ‘do the right thing this budget’, adding that the ‘longer the Chancellor waits to take action, the more rent debts will increase’.

 

They have put forward three recommendations for areas in which they want to see action taken in the budget next week. These are supporting renters in hard hit parts of the economy to keep their jobs by extending the furlough scheme, tackling high levels of rent arrears by improving funding for measures such as Discretionary Housing Payments, and providing security for renters by extending he ban on evictions.

 

Evictions from private rented accommodation have been identified as a major driver of homelessness. At the start of the pandemic the government ordered a pause to evictions during the first lockdown.

 

This protection was watered down in September last year and the amount of arrears renters can build up before being at risk of eviction was lowered from nine months to six. The current ban on evictions comes to a end on 31^st March and 300,000 renters who took part in the research said their landlords had already spoken to them about eviction.

 

Responding to the statement a government spokesperson told the BBC on Friday that they had ‘put households at the heart of our decision making throughout the pandemic’ and pointed to the £280 billion package of measures to keep people in work.

 

There is no question Chancellor Rishi Sunak faces some hard choices as he prepares the budget. Government borrowing has leapt to levels unimaginable only a year ago due to the pandemic and he will be under pressure to balance the books.

 

Against this must be offset the huge impact Covid-19 has had on wider society, pitching millions of families into financial uncertainty, keeping a roof over their heads is just one of many struggles they face.

 

The message from the coalition of charities led by the JRF is clear though, on the looming rent debt crisis he must ‘act now to avoid renters being scarred by debts they have no hope of clearing and a wave of people having to leave their homes in the weeks and months to come’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Don't Want to be Crushed by the Dark Feeling that is Eating People Up.

 

'I am very scared of losing myself and becoming incapable, I don't want to be crushed by the dark feeling that is eating lots of people up'.

 

This is the stark description of what it feels like to be a young person in Britain as the country approaches the first anniversary of the beginning of the pandemic.

 

It was expressed to researchers carrying out ongoing work on the impact the pandemic is having on British teenagers for the Mental Health Foundation working in partnership with Swansea University, MQ Mental Health Research and Leaders Unlocked.

 

The latest report from the project, published at the end of January, shows that teenager's assessment of their own mental health has declined over the Autumn and Winter. In late Summer 10% said their mental health was 'poor'; asked again in November 16% gave a similar response.

 

The latest research shows that out of the 2395 young people aged between 13 and 19 who responded 27% said they felt nervous or anxious nearly every day in the week before being interviewed; 26% said stress had made it hard for them to do concentrate on school work and 32% reported having trouble sleeping.

 

Researchers found that economic factors have had an impact on the mental wellbeing of young people. Those in families where their parents or guardians were unemployed or on low incomes reported more problems than those from more affluent homes.

 

Professor Ann John who led the research for Swansea University said the pandemic had 'exposed the inequalities in our society', adding that the government 'needs to deliver targeted support to those most at risk of developing a mental health problems in the context of their economic circumstances '.

 

Catherine Seymour, head of research at the Mental Health Foundation said the findings were a 'warning about how painful many young people's lives have become during the pandemic '. She added that ' our concern is that the longer the pandemic goes on, the more embedded these problems will become'.

 

In a statement accompanying the launch of the report Mark Rowland, chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation said its findings 'add to the urgency of calls to protect young people and their families, preventing their distress from worsening'.

 

The Mental Health Foundation has previously released recommendations for what the government needs to do to address a potential mental health crisis caused by the pandemic.

 

These include creating a Mental Health Recovery and Response Plan that involves all areas of government and draws on successful approaches applied in other countries. They also call for more help for schools to support the mental health of young people and an end to benefits sanctions.

 

Data for the current report was gathered between November and December last year, the Mental Health Foundation has expressed serious concerns that when it gathers fresh evidence later this month, the situation may have become even worse.

This isn't just a school meals service for some kids it could be a lifeline.

 

Over the next few weeks councils across the UK will be setting their budget for the year to come. In these difficult times it is a glum business of counting beans and cutting costs. The public are 'consulted ', mostly for form's sake because belts have to be tightened come what may.

 

This process is talking place in my hometown of Stoke-on-Trent just now and the local press is drip feeding we the public with the bad news.

 

Reading through the resulting copy I came across a story that wasn't about what was going to be cut so much as what would be retained, at a price.

 

Under this year's budget proposals schools across the city will be charged an extra 6p for every meal provided for them by the City Catering service. A small rise that would raise an extra £140,000 next year, rising to £210,000 in 2022.

 

Speaking to the Sentinel Janine Bridges, council cabinet member for education told the  children and young people overview and scrutiny  committee this week, echoing a TV advert of a few years ago that 'the City Catering service is not just a school meals service, this is a top of the range schools food'.

 

A service that, she added, works with the Soil Association and 'endeavours to provide top of the range schools meals'. A far cry then from the boiled to death veg and meat of indeterminate origin familiar from my own school days then.

 

Here is the run though, as councillor Bridges told the committee to 'sustain this high-quality service, we must modernize some of the equipment, we must increase the of staff'. She added this added that she felt the children of our city deserve a quality school food service because for many, too many, children the  meal they get at school ' is the only good nutritious meal they're going to get'.

 

I agree, the question is if schools have to pay more for the meals they provide, for now much longer will they able to provide them? The Sentinel reported that 'council chiefs believe schools will be able to absorb these costs without passing them on to pupils who by school meals'.

 

That seems to be an overly optimistic view to say the least. In an education sector that has long since welcomed the market in a cost is something that exists only to be cut. The sharp operators will do so by moving to a cheaper supplier; the really sharp ones will find a way to raise the price in the process.

 

Either way families who are struggling to get by are going to get a raw deal. If schools move to a cheaper supplier their kids will get fed turkey Twizzlers; if the price goes up, they might not get fed at school at all.

 

Food poverty and poverty in general is a real problem and one that wrecks lives across the UK. There are, according to figures produced by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) 14.5million people living in poverty, 8% to 9% of whom stay there for longer than two years with a devastating impact on their life chances.

 

Out of those 8.4million struggle to put food on the table, 13% of the people in this sorry situation are in paid work. The Victorian nightmare of begin one of the working poor has become a reality again in the twenty first century (Sustain/ JRF).

 

Poverty is an awful thing for an adult to endure, impacting on their physical health and mental wellbeing; for a child it is even worse. The Child Poverty Action Group estimated that in 2018/19 4.2million children were living in poverty, 72% of whom were in families where at least one person was in work.

 

That pandemic has made what was an already bad situation so much worse, as the JRF put it it has battered the labour market. Many people have seen their jobs and incomes vanish, those lucky enough to be on furlough fear theirs may be next.

 

The impact can be seen in the fact that the Trussell Trust, the charity which runs most food banks in England gave out 1.2million emergency food parcels in the first six months, 2600 going to children every day.

 

This, you might say, is a long way from schools in Stoke having to pay more for the meals they serve, only it isn't. The kids with parents who can't afford a hike in dinner money are often the ones who received emergency food -parcels. Either that or they are walking the poverty line like a tightrope and may fall off at any moment.

 

It is an inevitably of budgeting that schools will pass costs on to parents, so the council need to think before passing costs on to them. Every child deserves a decent meal at least once a day, this seemingly small change could deny it to some. Pulling away a vital lifeline in the process.