1/2Million Welfare and Debt Relief for Eden Residents

News Release

Date: 4th August2015

£1/2million welfare and debt relief for Eden Residents

A partnership linking Eden Housing Association and The Cumbria Law Centre has seen Eden tenants benefit from an estimated £1/2 million in welfare and debt relief.

The Cumbria Law Centre has linked with Eden Housing Association (EHA) since April 2013,offeringtheir tenants specialist help in welfare benefits and debt matters.Case workers and Solicitors work two days each week, using EHA offices in Penrith as a base to meet tenants who have pre-booked appointments. As well as help with debt relief, the team will negotiate with creditors and provide budgeting advice.

The Cumbria Law Centre is an independent charity offering specialist legal advice and casework in housing, debt, welfare benefits and employment matters. Last year theyworked on 213 cases for EHA’s tenants, and whilst a few were simple advisory issues, most involved substantial legal casework

Since the start, over £1/2 million (£ 555,300) gains have been made for tenants relating to housing and other benefits, and including over £175k in debt relief. Every penny of this total has contributed to the relief of financial stresses faced by tenants.

When the partnership was launched, the majority of the case workload related to a mix of housing, welfare and debt advice, but the last twelve months has seen an overwhelming number of cases relating to welfare reformissues.80% of the current workload relates to welfare benefits, and Cumbria Law Centre confirmed that nearly all new cases opened now relate, at least in part,to welfare reform.

The continued raft of changes to the Welfare Reform System are causing great concern for residents who are often confused over the new payments, in many cases, causing greater risk of falling behind with payments.

Carolyn Greenhalgh, Assistant Director Housing and Support at Eden Housing Association said “the new ‘Universal Credit’ system brings together six benefits and tax credits and replaces them with a single monthly payment, paid directly to the customer who now becomes responsible for paying their own rent. It was tested on single people first, but has now been rolled out to families, and it is here that we have seen a real increase in the number of claimants. Few of the claims are straightforward and our tenants are desperate for clarity on what the changes mean to them.

The impact of working with the Cumbria Law Centre has been both dramatic and positive and continues to make a difference to tenants who have been facing extremely worrying times and struggling to budget their payments.”

As well as benefitting tenants, the ongoing benefit support relationship has positive outcomes for Eden Housing Association too. Rent payments no longer go directly to the social housing landlord and not all tenants are managing to deal with paying their own rent. Benchmarking statistics against other social housing providers indicates EHA continues to be well below the global average for ‘rent arears’. Their annual arrears figure reduced from 1.47% in 2012/13 to 1.14% in 2013/14 with a slight rise in 2015 to 1.32% - which was anticipated due to the welfare reform changes. This figure remains well below the global housing association average of 3.29% in 2014 and has been achieved as a result of the close working with the Cumbria Law Centre and Eden District Council Housing Benefits Team.

Pete Moran, Head of the Cumbria Law Centre said “Many social landlords offer support to their tenants in matters of debt, benefits and budgeting and do it very well. What is unique about this partnership is that Eden Housing Association has chosen to work with a completely independent legal advice organisation. That combination of independence and legal expertise makes the Law Centre a very potent advocate for our clients. I think this shows great confidence and openness on the part of Eden Housing Association, since the Law Centre’s main business also includes representing tenants AGAINST landlords in possession and eviction cases. The arrangement also means that tenants can speak to expert advisors whom they know will only ever act only in their very best interests, will maintain their confidentially and are fully audited by a legal practice accreditation scheme.”

It is littlewonder people are confused about the changes and the implications because not all benefits and credits are included. Universal Credit brings together six benefits and tax credits and replaces them with a single monthly payment. The six combined elements are income based Jobseekers Allowance, Income related Employment and Support Allowance, Income Support, Child Tax Credit, Working Tax Credit and Housing Benefit.

Benefits not included in the Universal Credit payments will continue to be paid as usual – these include Child benefit, Carers Allowance, Personal Independent Payment, and Council Tax support.

Ensuring those more isolated tenants are aware of the benefit service on offer, the EHA Community Development team travelled out to more rural parts of Eden to provide drop in sessions. Leaflets and articles also appear in the tenants magazines. The EHA team hopes it will encourage more tenants to come forward at an earlier stage, preventing financial issues worsening.

For more information about the benefit advice initiative, please contact Eden Housing Association on 01768 861400.

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Pictures: Carolyn Greenhalgh EHA Assistant Director Housing and Support with Pete Moran from the Cumbria Law Centre.

Carolyn Greenhalgh EHA Assistant Director Housing and Support with Pete Moran from the Cumbria Law Centre and Jenny Webb EHA Community Development Officer at a benefit matters drop in event.

Contact details: For more information about this press release or for pictures contact Tracey Errington on: 07799 640 290 or email

Editors notes overleaf

Editor notes

Eden Housing Association is a successful small independent Registered Provider of affordable homes with a rural focus. We were established in 1997 following the voluntary transfer of Eden District Council’s housing stock. We now operate across North Cumbria owning and/or managing around 1,982 homes for affordable rent or sale, and act as Managing Agents for Mitre Housing Association, Allonby Almshouses, and Lyvennet Community Trust.

During 2015-2018 EHA will focus on

Providing more quality affordable rural homes
A greater emphasis on supporting our local communities
Effective business improvement and people development

Law Centre is an independent charity offering specialist level legal advice and casework in housing, debt, welfare benefits and employment matters.

The Law Centre offers a service to the customers of Eden Housing Association to provide specialist help in welfare benefits and debt matters. This is mainly done through an outreach service running from the offices of EHA in Penrith. Additionally, clients may be seen in other locations where deemed appropriate.

This report covers the period May 2013 – 31st March 2015.