Changes To Automatic Entitlement To Housing Support For 18-21 Year-Olds

The Department for Work and Pensions will introduce the Youth Obligation, with tougher conditions and the removal of “automatic entitlement” to housing support for 18-21 year olds, in April 2017. Both, however, will only apply to young people making new Universal Credit claims.

Writing in Homeless Link blog, Paul Anderson says: “The Youth Obligation will only cover the types of claimants who would currently be claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance, so it will not include people who are sick or disabled. The feedback from Government has been that the intention of the new tougher conditionality is to provide greater levels of support to those who need it to help them find work.”

He added: “It is worth remembering that most 18-21 year olds claim Jobseeker’s Allowance for less than six months. This means the obligation to undertake some form of training, apprenticeship or work placement will only apply to a minority of claimants.”

“However, because people experiencing homelessness are among the groups who most struggle to find paid work, they will be affected disproportionately. The Department for Work and Pensions are keen to learn from any employment support programmes that successfully engage with young people and groups that are most distant from the labour market.”

It has recently been announced that the Youth Obligation is only being introduced next April 2017 into geographical areas with the Full Universal Credit service rather than across the whole of Great Britain. Basically, this means that until an area has full UC, it will not have Youth Obligation.

Also expected soon are details of the new “Work and Health Programme” which will reform work-search support for some Employment Support Allowance (ESA) and long-term Job Seeker Allowance (JSA) claimants. This new programme is due to come in from September 2017.