Student accommodation is for 39 weeks a year. For 13 weeks students usually go home. The poorest students are inclined to have parents claiming housing benefit, and infrequently would be the first generation of their family to visit university. What happens now with the bedroom tax (Comment, 19 February) Student loans are calculated on accommodation costs being for term-time only. Do parents need to make a choice from being financially penalised for keeping their child’s bedroom available for the vacations or moving to a smaller place and making their child homeless for the vacations, unable to assert housing benefit for themselves as they’re under 24 i do know a lone parent with a disabled son as a result of visit university in September. Due to his disability he has to come back home more often than most students. She doesn’t know what to do. This kind of dilemma could be replicated around the UK hitting the foremost vulnerable students – another factor making university less accessible for the poorest.
Fiona Kirton
Shepton Mallet, Somerset
• Readers shouldn’t be misled by the quaint connotations of the term “bed and breakfast” accommodation in describing the growing plight of thousands of families unable to be placed by local authorities. Breakfast isn’t offered – instead the regulations state that it comprises accommodation where a loo, personal washing facilities or cooking facilities are shared by a couple of household. It truly is an inevitable consequence of cuts to housing benefit, and with rent rises likely vastly to exceed the 1% increase in housing benefit rates planned for a higher couple of years, will affect thousands more people, especially youngsters.
Ed Turner
Aston University
• The MPs who voted for this and feature accommodation in London, also live in social housing because the taxpayer pays their rent. The identical rules should apply to them, or is it a case of 1 rule for the wealthy and another for the poor
Frank Clements
Manchester
