Langley House Trust - urgent appeal

Coventry Office
PO Box 6364
Coventry
CV6 9LL

1st February 2016

Urgent Help Needed — Please Speak to your MP

Dear Friend,

We are writing to request your urgent attention. We face the prospect of a number of our residents being made homeless, along with thousands of others, through Government caps being proposed to social housing.

Currently, sheltered and supported housing provided by housing associations is exempt from the Local Housing Allowance (LHA). This is because of a recognition that vulnerable people who have support needs (including our residents) require a more intensive level of housing management and services in order to live safely and securely.

The Government's Welfare and Work Bill proposes to remove exemptions for sheltered and supported housing providers for vulnerable adults so that the rents payable come in line with LHA. This will result in the loss of 82,000 specialist homes for vulnerable adults — 41% of all of this type of housing.

Those affected will have to find alternative homes — but because there is little or no additional housing available in council housing or the private rented sector thousands will simply be made homeless.

Our services help people like Brian — a distressed young man, he had started hearing voices in his teens. He ended up in prison where he became a prolific self-harmer. Since coming to Langley, we have helped him to stop self-harming, overcome issues with alcohol and start to develop skills as a chef. He has also re-established contact with his family.

Under the Government proposals to the Welfare and Work Bill, the project that helped Brian wouldn't exist. His support options would be few — the top one sadly would be going back to prison. Or he could try to start life afresh living rough on the streets.

The Government is setting aside a Discretionary Housing Payment fund to try and mitigate some of the shortfall in rent but it is nowhere near enough to stop thousands of people like Brian being made homeless.

Help us to take action: we have written to the MPs in each of the areas where we will be affected. We are asking you to do the same and have drafted a letter for you to send to your MP. (This is saved a a pdf file on this page.) Please sign this, fill in the details and add your own personal message before sending it on. We need MPs to do everything in their power to ensure that exemptions for sheltered and supported housing providers remain.

Thank you — we appreciate your support in this critical time.

Yours sincerely,

Tracy Wild, CEO Langley House Trust