Housing Payments
Housing Payments (HP) are part of the Crisis and Resilience Fund, which is funded by the UK Government. Housing Payments provide a one off or short-term support towards housing costs such as a rent shortfall, moving costs or rent deposits or advance payments.
To be eligible for this support, you must be receiving either housing benefit or the Universal Credit housing costs element. A HP cannot be used to:
- pay ineligible service charges
- minimise the effect of Job Seeker Plus sanctions
- make payment when housing benefit is suspended
- help with council tax - there is a separate discretionary council tax discount to help with this
Before you start
To help process your application in a quicker time please provide the following documents in support of your application:
- bank statements - 2 months most recent consecutive statements for all building society and bank accounts, regardless of balance, held by you and or partner if you have one. These must be full statements showing all transactions and name of holder
- capital/savings held by you and your partner (for example shares, ISAs etc)
- rent arrears - if you are applying for help with rent arrears we need to see rent statements from your landlord from when you went into arrears to date
- Universal Credit – if you receive Universal Credit we need to see your last 3 award notices in full showing all deductions. (Download or print this from your Universal Credit Journal)
- debts and other relevant information – proof of debts (utilities, loans etc)
- removal costs – if you are applying for help with removal costs please provide 2 quotes
- moving into a new home – please provide your tenancy agreement or letter from landlord confirming details of a proposed tenancy (rent, rent deposit, address of property)
- any other relevant information to support your application (medical evidence, eviction notices etc)
- identity and income - if you do not receive housing benefit or council tax reduction, you must provide proof of identity and income and your national insurance number
Your files need to be clearly readable. If we cannot read your evidence it will take longer to process your application.
Evidence to support your HP claim can be uploaded to the online form, sent by email or posted. The sooner you send the evidence the quicker we can help you.
Online
We may ask you to upload some documents.
- accepted file types: Word (docx), Acrobat (pdf), Excel (xlsx), Plain text (txt)
- zip files cannot be uploaded
- we also accept clear photos taken on phones and tablets and the following image file types - jpeg, gif, png
- there is a maximum individual file size per document of 10MB
You can send scanned documents or digital photos by attaching them by email to HBScanning@ealing.gov.uk
In the email 'subject' box please enter the text 'HP application', followed by your council tax reduction or housing benefit reference number. If you do not have this, please insert your national insurance number. Your uploaded files need to be clearly readable. If we cannot read your documents it will take longer to process your application.
Post
If you are unable to upload evidence online you can post it to: Ealing Council, PO box 32251, London W5 5XA
What happens next
You must report all change of circumstances once you have made a claim as soon as possible otherwise you may need to repay any overpayments.
Apply
If you need help making an application, you can visit one of our Community Hubs
