Perfec storm - given tha HB was calculated at a median rent and is now going to the 30th centile it hardly smacks of homelessness. Maybe people will have to live in smaller more cramped accommodation, people live way way way beyond their means thanks to benefits incl tax credits. They are now going to find out what hey can actually afford and many won't like it.
Sorry, you are either under a misapprehension or being disingenuous.
Rents were set at the bottom 50% average of an area for the size of property required for the person/family in question. They are now set at the bottom 30%. As previously mentioned, the overwhelming majority of properties are not available for people on benefit, so no, 30% of properties are not within their grasp at all. A cursory inspection of the criteria required on Rightmove rental ads will make that very clear to anyone willing to see. If you pretend to the absolutely untrue claim that 30% of properties are still available to people on benefit then yep, homelessness unlikely. But most agencies now require employers to verify income, as well as standard credit checks, which also impacts working people. One of my husband's staff, who seemingly claims nothing other than CTC, struggled to find a flat for his family as their income is quite low proportionate to local housing costs, his GF was on SMP at the time, and agencies require double the rent in income before being willing to let somewhere. The agencies needed the insurance as they offer landlords a guarantee. (He was okay as family stepped in as guarantors; not everyone has that resource.) If you look at that simple figure - a third of property of the right size is available to people on benefits - it sounds fine. But that's such a partial picture that it's also complete rubbish. Very few people rent to people on benefits/on low incomes, so reducing the available properties yet further makes finding somewhere a huge issue. And those who have to move out and find somewhere else are also having to find rent in advance and provide deposits before they get their old places back, and whatever amount of their deposit they're entitled to. How is someone on benefit supposed to save a grand? Please explain?
And you're perfectly correct in stating that many people live beyond earnings with tax credits. That's because rents in much of the country mean that without tax credits, people can't afford to live at all. Which takes us neatly back to the "starvation/homelessness" issues mentioned earlier. I'm not quite sure why you struggle with the concept that a working woman on 16k a year before tax (a not abnormal wage for full time admin or call centre type work, in the area I live) can't afford to house herself, her son and her daughter, pay bills and council tax, plus food, clothes and transport, on that wage alone. She will rely on tax credits, pure and simple. "Not liking it" is not the same as "unable to live". Tax credits changed the landscape within which many people just couldn't afford to work, because their poverty was greater than it would be if they were on benefit. How is a return to those days beneficial, in social or economic terms? It very obviously is not. Daily Mail style soundbites have the benefit of sounding refreshingly simple and "just common sense" but they don't bear any relationship to the facts, which (as always when dealing with human lives) are more complicated than that.
It's nice to think "poor people have been spoilt. Now they will have to live on their means!" But as "means" is "level governments have always determined as the minimum required to live" I think it should not require too much intellectual effort to grasp the fact that cuts mean "less than the level governments have always determined as the minimum required to live." And I genuinely fail to comprehend how anyone can justify that and look themselves in the mirror, tbh.