Discretionary Housing Payments

If you need extra help to pay your rent on top of your Housing Benefit, Three Rivers Council has been given a limited amount of money from the Government to do this. This is known as Discretionary Housing Payments.

The amount of help that you can get will depend on your circumstances and each request is looked at individually.

The length of time that you can receive a Discretionary Housing Payment for will also depend on your circumstances.

When we consider your request, we will look at what steps you have already taken to ease the situation, for example if you have tried to negotiate a lower rent or are looking to move to a more affordable property.

We will also look to make sure you are getting all the benefits that you are entitled to and make sure that you get other help such as debt advice from CAB or Housing Options advice from our Housing Department.

Discretionary Housing Payments are not guaranteed and you will not automatically get a payment if you have had one previously.  You can view the council's DHP policy which was updated from 1/4/15 -  DHP Policy 2015 (pdf)

To start the process, you need to make a claim using the Discretionary Housing Payment Claim Form (docx)

Information about what a DHP is,  can be found in this leaflet Information about Discretionary Housing Payments (pdf).