Arms-length management organisations (ALMOs) up and down the country serve some of the poorest communities in England and are already seeing the impact that the recent welfare reforms are having on tenants. Reforms such as the introduction of the spare room subsidy, the cutting of council tax benefits in many local authority areas and the slow roll out of Universal Credit are affecting the day to day lives of tenants as well as landlords. Anecdotally, ALMOs in some areas have reported a startling rise in the reliance on food banks and a worrying increase in the use of doorstep lenders. To find out the true effect of the reforms in the council housing sector the National Federation of ALMOs (NFA) undertook a survey of its members last autumn with our colleagues at ARCH (Association of Retained Council Housing).
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