Bedroom Tax Victims to Choose Between Heating or Eating

A pioneering project is breathing new life into homes which are ‘empty’ and ‘run down’, which will help the victims of the so called ‘bedroom tax’. The team which is behind setting this up has warned that there has been a number of families stung by the reform and have to choose between heating their homes or feeding their families. Arise Yorkshire Ltd is a new non profit company, which consists of Bradford’s community organisations joining together and it is believed that this company is the first of its kind in the region.

Arise received £1.2 million of Government funding to be used for the renovation of 18 empty houses, which when are fully completed will then be rented out as social housing through Manningham Housing Association. The organisations involved are Inspired Neighbourhoods, Bradford Trident, Holme Christian Community, Carlisle Business Centre and Royds Community Association.

Trident chief executive and an Arise board member, Mick Binns, said, “Renovating a derelict home brought wider benefits to a neighbourhood. So far, five homes have been renovated and let out. One of their first tenants, mother-of one Vaide Pavlovaite, 27, moved into her new home at Woodhall Avenue, Thornbury, with eight-year-old son Kajus last month.”

Vaide Pavlovaite said her previous house which she had rented privately, had faulty heating and electrics, and with it having four bedrooms was far too big for the two of them. She said: “This house is really nice. It has two bedrooms and it’s clean.”

The Government’s under-occupancy reforms, which were introduced last April, docks people’s housing benefit if they are living in social housing deemed to be too large for their needs, in a move designed to encourage tenants to down-size. The Arise team said it had serious concerns about the effects of the reform on Bradford tenants, however, business advisor David Wilford said: “People are facing the choice of heating or eating through this bedroom tax. A lot of them are actually paying the bedroom tax but sacrificing food so they can keep the heating on. It’s just horrible.”