The Crisis and Resilience Fund, and what it replaced

From 1 April 2026, England has one scheme where it previously had two. The Crisis and Resilience Fund brings together the Household Support Fund and Discretionary Housing Payments into a single grant, run by every council in England and funded to 31 March 2029, the first time crisis support has had a multi-year settlement rather than a funding extension announced every six to twelve months. It has three strands: Crisis Payments, which pick up where the Household Support Fund left off; Housing Payments, which pick up where Discretionary Housing Payments left off; and Resilience Services, a new strand with no direct predecessor, covering things such as debt advice and outreach rather than cash. Funding is £1 billion a year across the UK, of which £842 million a year is allocated to England, paid to councils through the Local Government Finance Settlement. This guidance and funding applies to England only. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland run their own separate schemes, covered near the end of this guide.

Yes. The Household Support Fund ran in extensions from October 2021 through to a final extension of £742 million for the year to 31 March 2026, and the Crisis Payments strand of the Crisis and Resilience Fund is what replaced it from 1 April 2026, with no gap between the two. Gov.uk has not deleted or redirected the old Household Support Fund guidance page. It is still live, marked as historical, and its only edit since the rename has been to remove an outdated benefit reference, while it now links out to the Crisis and Resilience Fund's own page for anyone looking for live help. Most coverage of the rename stops there and talks only about the Household Support Fund's replacement. It is easy to miss that Discretionary Housing Payments changed at the same time, in England only, which the next section covers.

In England, Discretionary Housing Payments came to an end on 31 March 2026, and from 1 April 2026 they were replaced by the Housing Payment strand of the Crisis and Resilience Fund. This is an England-only change. Discretionary Housing Payments still exist as their own scheme, under their own name, in Scotland and in Wales, both linked from the Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland section below. Gov.uk's own Discretionary Housing Payment claiming page has been rewritten to reflect this: for a reader in England it now says the payment has been replaced by the Crisis and Resilience Fund, while readers in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are routed to their own schemes from the same page. If this site's guides to the Universal Credit housing element, the bedroom tax or the benefit cap have told you to apply for a Discretionary Housing Payment to cover a shortfall, that advice still holds in Scotland and Wales. In England, ask your council about a Housing Payment instead, covered in detail below.

Crisis Payments are not limited to people getting benefits. Councils have discretion to set their own definition of a low income and their own test for what counts as a crisis, and there is deliberately no national list of who qualifies or what is covered. Gov.uk states the general rule plainly: you do not have to be getting benefits to get help from your local council. Support is meant to be cash-first, meaning cash is the default, though a council can offer a voucher or goods instead where that suits you better. Examples the national guidance gives of what a Crisis Payment can go towards include food, water, energy, hygiene products, clothing, essential furniture and appliances, transport costs, and staying connected by phone or broadband. For energy bills specifically, the Warm Home Discount takes £150 off your electricity bill for winter 2026 to 2027, and in England and Wales it is usually applied automatically if you got Universal Credit on 23 August 2026 and your name is on the bill. None of these are guaranteed at any specific council, and several councils rule out particular things, such as rent arrears or white goods, on their own pages. There is no national cap on how many times a year you can apply, but many councils set their own, and they vary: Birmingham allows a new claim 366 days after your last payment, while Newcastle allows up to three awards in twelve months. If you have no recourse to public funds, you are generally not eligible for a Crisis Payment, because it is paid under a power that counts as public funds, though a council can sometimes help a different way, for example under child welfare or care law, if your circumstances qualify.

A Housing Payment is only for people entitled to Universal Credit with housing costs towards rent, or to Housing Benefit. Owner-occupiers cannot get one: if you own your home outright or with a mortgage, a Housing Payment is not available, and a Crisis Payment may be worth asking about instead. Where you do qualify, it can cover rent in advance, a deposit, moving costs, and shortfalls between your Universal Credit or Housing Benefit and your actual rent, including the shortfalls covered in this site's guides to the housing element, the bedroom tax and the benefit cap: a Local Housing Allowance cap that has not kept pace with rents, the under-occupancy reduction, or the benefit cap itself (DWP's benefit cap statistics show how many households it hits), all worked out by the housing element calculator. It does not cover ineligible service charges, rent arrears that have already built up, a shortfall caused by a sanction, or a shortfall caused by recovery of an overpayment. On an ongoing award, a Housing Payment cannot exceed your weekly Housing Benefit or Universal Credit housing costs, so it closes a gap rather than replacing your rent liability outright. It can even cover two homes at once if you count as temporarily absent from your main home, including if you have fled domestic abuse. Councils can top up their own Housing Payment funding with no limit, and can keep using their old Discretionary Housing Payment claim forms during the changeover, so do not be put off if the form you are given still says DHP on it.

No. Gov.uk states plainly that if you get benefits, they will not be affected if you get a payment from the Crisis and Resilience Fund, and the legal mechanism backs that up. A Crisis Payment or Housing Payment counts as local welfare provision under the Universal Credit Regulations 2013, and any unspent balance is disregarded as capital for 12 months from the date you receive it, under Schedule 10 to those Regulations. It is never counted as income at all, because Universal Credit only counts unearned income against a closed list of named income types, and local welfare provision is not on that list. Turn2us confirms the same reading in its own guidance on disregarded capital. One comparison site, entitledto, states elsewhere on its own pages that Universal Credit can be reduced to take account of repayment of a crisis and resilience fund loan. That is not correct for England: a Crisis Payment or Housing Payment is a grant, not a loan, and nothing is deducted from your Universal Credit to repay one. The only thing repaid through your Universal Credit is an advance or a hardship payment, a completely different, DWP-run system, covered in this site's guide to deductions and advances.

There is no national amount, and every council page checked for this guide refuses to give one in advance: Stockton-on-Tees says it will decide how much you are paid, and Redbridge says there is no set amount for a Crisis Payment, because both are decided case by case. What is fixed nationally is the process, not the money: councils must offer at least two ways to apply, such as online, by phone or in person, and someone else, such as an appointee, a friend, a relative, or a voluntary or community sector organisation, can apply on your behalf. Beyond that, expect real variation. The table below compares eight councils, checked on 17 September 2026. These are examples of how each one ran its own scheme that day, not a national rule, and your own council's page is the only page that describes your own entitlement.

Resilience Services are the third strand of the Fund, and the one with no predecessor scheme: not cash payments, but the services that help someone build financial resilience, expected to take a significant share of a council's total funding. Real examples from councils include in-house debt and welfare rights advice teams, such as Greenwich's Money Advice Team; proactive outreach that finds people entitled to benefits they are not claiming, such as Bracknell Forest's data-matching work with pension-age households; cost of living programmes providing furniture, clothing and white goods, such as Birmingham's; and food bank and advice integration, such as Citizens Advice training food bank volunteers in Brighton and Hove. If you are not eligible for a Crisis Payment or a Housing Payment, for example because you have no recourse to public funds, these non-cash services, alongside a food bank referral or a debt advice appointment, are worth asking your council about directly, since they generally do not carry the same eligibility restrictions as a cash payment.

The Crisis and Resilience Fund applies to England only. Local welfare support is devolved, and each nation runs its own scheme under its own name. In Scotland, your council runs the Scottish Welfare Fund, which pays Crisis Grants and Community Care Grants with decision deadlines set in law: see the Scottish Welfare Fund guide. In Wales, the Discretionary Assistance Fund is one national scheme run for the Welsh Government, paying Emergency Assistance Payments and Individual Assistance Payments: see the Discretionary Assistance Fund guide. Neither is repaid. In Northern Ireland, you apply to the Finance Support Service for Discretionary Support, which can be an interest-free loan or a grant, depending on your circumstances: see the Universal Credit in Northern Ireland guide. Discretionary Housing Payments also continue as a separate scheme in Scotland and in Wales, run by councils alongside those funds, so a housing shortfall in Cardiff or Glasgow is still a Discretionary Housing Payment application, not a Crisis and Resilience Fund one.