Councillors call on government to increase Local Housing Allowance

The leaders of Hastings, Lewes and Eastbourne councils have written to Florence Eshalomi MP, Minister for Homelessness, Democracy, Communities and Faith calling for Local Housing Allowance (LHA) to be increased across their areas. 

LHA is set by the Department for Work and Pensions, based on information on rent levels in a particular area. Each council area has its own LHA rate which covers different sized homes. LHA rates should be updated every year in line with increases in living costs, but the Hastings rate has not been increased since 2024. Before then it was updated in 2020. 

Research shows that in Hastings, there were no two-bed, three-bed or four-bed properties available at LHA rate. There were two one-bed properties available at LHA. There were also no shared rooms available at the shared accommodation LHA rate. 

Cllr Glenn Haffenden, leader of Hastings Borough Council, said: “The fact that there are hardly any properties that could be rented at LHA rates shows that this needs to be increased. This impacts single people and families alike. Many residents cannot afford to live here. They cannot afford to move out of council-funded accommodation, which means that our housing teams can’t move people off the housing waiting list into these properties.  

“Between 2013 and 2023, house prices in Hastings rose faster than anywhere else in England and rents have increased alongside this, while wages and LHA have not increased at this rate. 

“While we are grateful for the additional funding from government to support housing initiatives, what we really need is for LHA to be increased – this would make a real difference to so many of the households and would help them move into private accommodation, freeing up council-funded homes to others on the housing waiting list.” 

The three councils are working together with partners across East Sussex to produce an ambitious response to the government’s National Plan to End Homelessness, including:

• Directly investing our homelessness prevention, rough sleeping and domestic abuse grant in homelessness prevention and wellbeing activity to identify and support people at risk of homelessness early. 
• Securing additional investment from our Crisis and Resilience Fund to provide housing-related floating support services to help people find a new home. 
• Creating an innovative new multi-disciplinary team of health, mental health, social care, substance dependency, domestic abuse and peer navigators, to support people living with multiple and compound needs. The team is jointly funded by housing, domestic abuse and substance dependency services. 
• Continuing to maximise the delivery of affordable housing, including through collaboration with the new Sussex & Brighton Strategic Authority. 

However, the need for local homelessness services remains high. 525 households presented as homelessness and were owed a statutory duty over the last three months across Eastbourne, Lewes and Hastings. There are 1,008 households living in temporary accommodation, including 1,041 children. Across all three areas, a leading reason for people presenting as homeless was the end of a private tenancy, accounting for more than a quarter of all homelessness presentations.