The fund is provided by DWP and distributed to local councils, who decide the best way to support households in their boroughs. The fund helps people pay for food, heating, and other essentials. Those who have received help are among the financially worst-off in the country.
The criteria for eligibility to the HSF includes the fact that you must not have access to funds that can be used to meet any needs you’re applying for, and you must be deemed to have insufficient resources that would cause ‘serious risk’ to your own or your family’s health or safety. Some councils might specify that you be in receipt of certain benefits to apply.
However, according to sources, the HSF will finish at the end of the March and will not be renewed for 2024/25. News of the possible closure of the fund comes after the final Cost of Living Payments were made to eight million households, with the Government seemingly now moving away from large-scale state support for people.
Calls for the continuation of the fund are increasing. Only last month over 120 organisations wrote to the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, urging him to extend the fund for another year at least, while a group of 160 local councils have said that the fund must be extended as it is a “vital lifeline” for families across the country. Some councils have already closed their HSF as all the money available has been given out.
Councillor Shaun Davies, who is the chair of the Local Government Association said closing the HSF risks households across the UK falling even further into financial crisis, saying that "increases pressure on already overstretched public services such as the NHS, social care and temporary accommodation,"
Dan White, Policy and campaign lead on poverty and cost of living said “The Government appear to have no understanding of the financial crisis that has laid waste to Disabled families and individuals, none. The support so far has been weak and grudging, with ministers failing to empathise or accept reality. By withdrawing this support, they are effectively condemning financially vulnerable people, the majority of whom are Disabled to destruction. This action threatens the very future of local welfare – leaving people with nowhere to turn in a time of crisis, nowhere.
The Fund should continue and be ring-fenced. The cost-of-living crisis is not over, the HSF is keeping families functioning, benefits are absurdly low, but the system seems happy to keep pulling the financial rug from under people."