Responding to the Government pledge to protect renters amid the coronavirus outbreak, Cllr Richard Watts, Chair of the Local Government Association’s Resources Board, said:
“Councils are leading local efforts to support communities as they try and cope with the coronavirus outbreak. They will be working with tenants who are experiencing financial challenges as a result to support them to stay in their homes. Many are already suspending debt recovery and will try and use discretionary funding to support struggling household as quickly and effectively as possible
“Councils need the flexibility to ensure hardship funding announced by the Government is best-used to support economically vulnerable people and households and are also seeking clarity on how it can be integrated with other financial hardship support that is being provided locally and through the benefits system.
“We are pleased the Government has committed to bringing forward measures to protect tenants from eviction and look forward to seeing the details. This needs to include urgently addressing the growing shortfall before housing benefit and private sector rents that has opened up.”
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