Citizens Advice has warned that the coalition government’s proposed cuts to housing benefit will result in higher levels of poverty, debt, rent arrears and homelessness and should be delayed.

Cuts announced by government include a cap on housing benefit payments from April next year.

Citizens Advice strongly opposes the cuts, but says that if they do go ahead, the government must take steps to cushion the impact and smooth the transition for those households affected. It calls for a delay in introducing the new cap until October 2011, or at the very least only applying it to new claims from April, in order to ensure that people locked into existing tenancy agreements do not find themselves suddenly trapped with an unaffordable rent, and to give them time to find somewhere else to live.

The charity is particularly concerned about the impact on housing and homelessness in London, where housing pressures are already extreme. When the new caps are imposed, 93% of rents in central London will be unaffordable for private tenants reliant on housing benefit. Over 18,000 households will be affected, with average shortfalls between their housing benefit and rent of £81 a week.

Last year (2009/10) Citizens Advice Bureaux in England and Wales dealt with over 222,000 enquiries relating to housing benefit. Parent body Citizens Advice says it is clear from this advice work that housing benefit plays a crucial role in enabling people on low incomes to sustain their housing, yet decisions on cuts have been made without considering the housing implications.

Citizens Advice says it is highly unsatisfactory that the decision to make benefit cuts on this scale, affecting huge numbers of low income and vulnerable households, was taken without any prior assessment of the possible impact on rent levels, on landlords’ willingness to let to claimants, or on the standard of property that will be available within the new housing benefit rates.

The charity also expresses concern that although the government acknowledges there will be negative consequences – for example on homelessness, overcrowding, and child poverty – no proposals have been put forward for mitigating these effects.

Citizens Advice chief executive Gillian Guy said: “We are extremely concerned at the potential impact of the cuts to housing benefit on people’s ability to pay their rents and avoid rent arrears and homelessness. Tens of thousands of private tenants will find their rent is unaffordable and will therefore need to move at short notice to areas with lower rents as a result of the proposed cuts.