Housing benefit cuts have led to a 10% increase in people from low-income households reporting mental health problems, says an influential report. It has also propelled an additional 26,000 people into depression, researchers from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), University of Oxford and London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine have found.

The report, published in the esteemed American Journal of Epidemiology, looks at the mental health effects of the UK government’s April 2011 reduction in financial support to low-income households renting from the private sector. Over 179,000 private tenants were surveyed, comparing those who received of Local Housing Allowance (LHA) to those who didn’t, between 2009 and 2013. LHA changes came into effect on 1 April 2011 and, by following these people over time, the researchers were able to measure the impact of the cuts on those affected.

Government changes to LHA reduced the amount people on low incomes could claim from 50% of the average rate in their local area to 30%, as well as placing a cap on how much an individual could claim per week depending on the number of bedrooms. The Institute of Fiscal Studies estimates that the average loss of income for recipients was £1,220 per year, affecting about 1.35 million individuals and potentially tipping 27,000-54,000 children into severe poverty.

Of the 1.5 million people receiving housing benefit in the private rented sector in March 2010, around a fifth were recorded as experiencing depression. After April 2011, researchers found this figure increased by 10% meaning that approximately 26,000 additional people receiving housing benefits reported symptoms after the cuts came in. And this was not a short-term shock – the increase in depressive symptoms being reported remained for up to two years after the reform.

Aaron Reeves, Associate Professorial Research Fellow in Poverty and Inequality at LSE’s International Inequality Institute and lead author of the report, said: “Housing provides shelter and security, protecting health and well-being. But when that security becomes uncertain, health, and mental health in particular, is undermined.”

“The government’s reduction in housing benefit in April 2011 created uncertainty in the lives of some low-income by making their housing less affordable. This reduction in financial support increased the risk of depressive symptoms among those claiming housing benefit over and above other people in the private rented sector.”

Martin McKee, Professor of European Public Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said: “At a time when the NHS, and the mental health service in particular, is facing unprecedented pressure, and when NHS leaders are highlighting the need to reduce preventable illness, it is incredible that other government policies are adding to that pressure”.

There are three key issues that must be considered by policy makers when considering future changes to housing support, the researchers argue. First, the findings highlight the health effects of welfare reform on economically vulnerable groups, showing that policies that increase precariousness and expose individuals to greater insecurity and potential homelessness can lead to an increase in mental health problems being experienced.

Second, these reforms counteract policy initiatives in other areas that are seeking to reduce reliance on disability benefits by reducing the generosity of incapacity benefit. In future, policymakers should attend more carefully to the spill-over effects of policy interventions that are implemented simultaneously.

Third, as part of the July 2015 budget the Conservative government outlined plans to remove eligibility for housing benefit from those aged 18-21. This policy change will increase the risk of depressive symptoms among this group even further, potentially harming their chances in the labour market and having a long term scarring effect on their mental health.

You can read the full report here ‘Reductions in housing benefit increases symptoms of depression in low-income UK households’

A new report into the deaths of homeless people in Dublin concludes that the average age of death among those living on the streets is 42 years. Among homeless women, the mean age of death is even lower, at just 38. Among homeless men, the mean age of death is 44. Of 140 deaths among the homeless population over a four-year period, 16 occurred on the streets.

The relatively young age at which many of those living on the streets die is in contrast to average life expectancy among the general population – 75 years for men and 80 for women. The percentage of homeless people who die as a result of drug and alcohol addiction is also far higher than in the general population, at 30% compared to approximately 7%.

One of the study authors, Dr. Joe Barry, said it was widely acknowledged that the issue of addiction among the homeless needs to be addressed. Dr Barry and his colleague Dr. Jo-Hanna Ivers of the Institute of Public Health, Trinity College Dublin, collaborated with Bernie O’Donoghue Hynes of the Dublin Region Homeless Executive in conducting the study, ‘Mortality Amongst the Homeless Population in the Dublin Region’.

Through visits to homeless hostels, the coroners’ offices and homeless agencies, the researchers drew together data that showed:

• 140 deaths among homeless between 2011 and 2014.
• Nine deaths among homeless people aged 18 to 24 — seven men and two women.
• 12 deaths among over 65s who were homeless
• 16 died on the streets; 67 in hospital; and 41 in homeless services.

Dr. Barry said the report contains draft recommendations, including the need for better recording of deaths among the homeless population not just in Dublin, but nationwide.

Figures from the Department of Housing reveal that there were 4,248 homeless adults in August this year, whilst a recent city centre headcount by the Dublin Simon Community found 168 people slept outside in doorways, shop fronts, streets and parks.

A new funding model for the provision of supported housing (which includes women’s refuges, homeless shelters and housing for those leaving care) has been outlined by the Department for Works and Pensions (DWP).

Supported housing will continue to be exempt from the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) cap until 2019. From then the new funding model will protect the sector from the cap with a top up of additional ring-fenced funding. The amount of top-up funding will be set on the basis of current projections of future need.

According to the DWP the new ring-fenced money will give local authorities greater flexibility to commission services in line with local needs. The government will be consulting with the supported housing sector over the details of the funding model in the coming months. The government also announced that benefit claimants in supported accommodation will be exempt from the lower shared accommodation rate, in recognition of the vulnerable nature of many of their residents.

Work and Pensions Secretary, Damian Green, said: “We know the valuable role that these organisations play in communities across Britain. Women’s refuges or housing for young people with learning disabilities are important parts of the support system for vulnerable people.

“The new model will mean Housing Benefit and the housing element of Universal Credit will focus on paying for core housing costs, while still ensuring the sector is protected from the Local Housing Allowance cap.”

All well and good.

However, also included in the statement is confirmation of the government’s determination to press ahead with an annual, rolling 1% reduction in the rent payments for three years. Supported accommodation services are mostly funded by housing benefit payments and the DWP would cut the rent that supported housing providers can claim back from the benefits system.

Howard Sinclair, the chief executive of St Mungo’s, told The Independent the cut would leave the homeless charity with £3 million a year less to spend on services. “The rent reduction will threaten the financial viability of some of our hostels and other supported housing schemes and offers no direct benefit to vulnerable tenants who mostly rely on housing benefit to cover their housing costs,” he said.

“We urge ministers to honour their commitments to ensure the sustainability of supported housing provision and protect services for vulnerable individuals by taking the rent reduction off the table. There should be no rent cuts imposed for supported housing services in the run up to the new funding regime.”

Damian Green said in the statement that charities had to make “efficiency savings”. “It is important that providers can continue to provide high-quality and cost-effective supported housing to meet the needs of their tenants. However, it is also important that supported housing should make efficiency savings in the same way as the rest of the social sector.”

You can read the full statement here: http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2016-09-15/HCWS154/

The Seattle Heroin Task Force, formed by Mayor Ed Murray and King County Executive Dow Constantine, has endorsed the creation of safe-consumption sites for injectors, which would be a first in the U.S.

A majority of the task-force members support a place where drugs can be injected safely rather than public toilets, alleys or homeless encampments such as ‘The Jungle’, said Dr. Jeffrey Duchin, the Task Force co-chair.

The idea is that users could visit a ‘supervised injection facility’ where they could get clean needles and anti-overdose medications as well as medical attention and treatment opportunities. The Task Force is working on formal recommendations expected next month, Duchin said, for what a model might look like and what legal hurdles it could face.

But such a site wouldn’t directly address homelessness among drug users. The Jungle’s population dropped by about 200 people after the mayor initiated intensive outreach efforts earlier this summer, but about 120 people remain, the vast majority of whom are addicted to heroin.

Mayor Murray has proposed a dormitory-style homeless shelter modeled after San Francisco’s Navigation Center that would allow pets, partners, storage for personal belongings, and intoxicated residents, unlike some hostels, as a way to coax residents out of encampments.

The model is helpful, said Kris Nyrop of the Public Defender Association (PDA), which also supports safe-consumption sites. “But you need to allow people to use on-site, so they don’t in an alley or back in The Jungle,” said Nyrop, an outreach worker and drug-policy researcher in Seattle for two decades.

He and others suggest the solution may be in an inconspicuous blue building known as “1811.” They’re talking about 1811 Eastlake Avenue, which houses 75 chronic alcoholics who can drink in their rooms and avail themselves, if they choose, of treatment services on-site.

A study published in 2009 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) said it saved taxpayers $4 million a year in housing and crisis services that would’ve been incurred had they been living on the streets. It also reduced their alcohol use by about one-third. A 2012 study by University of Washington researchers also found decreased consumption by 1811 residents. “1811 is a great model, the kind of innovative solutions we should look at,” Duchin said.

Patricia Sully, of the Heroin Task Force, agrees: “1811 Eastlake has shown great results, and there is every reason to believe that a similar model for people who use drugs would show equally impressive results,” said Sully, a PDA staff attorney.