Hello - hope somebody can help me.

Have a client aged 18 recently released from prison. Was homeless upon his release and is currently living in Bed and Breakfast accommodation payable at £19 per night.

Has applied for Housing Benefit but been told that this will be paid at £40 per week only -due to single room rent.

The difference between the housing benefit and the cost of the B+B is being met by clients father who is unable to continue with this. As such in a few days client will be without accommodation.

Have tried negotiating with Council without avail. Know can possibly apply for a DHP to try and increase amount paid - however due to the urgency of clients housing situation can anybody think of a faster option, or think of any other method of ensuring that client is able to stay in the B+B

nb - client on all housing lists etc and cannot stay with his parents.

The only way I can think of is if he has previously been in social services care under a court order which continued beyond his 16th birthday.

Failing that it is a DHP application.

Hello

In this authority - if a person is placed by the homeless team in B&B accomodation then the rent is not referred to the RO. The entitlement is based on the actual rent charged.

I believe this is an agreement that was made between Housing and Benefits - but basically it was looking at the council finances as a whole and where the council would lose the most money.

These were than treated as threshold cases - where subsidy can be claimed by the LA up to 95% - with (previously)121/2% for the amount above the threshold.

This has been in place for at least three years now, and works well and is perfectly legit, unfortunately the manager who realised tha wecould assess homeless B&B claims in this way is no longer here so am unable to give any more detail - but did refer to ward and zeb for info on subsidy for homeless B&B cases.

Hope this makes sense!!