While today is the traditional date to tell untrue tales for a laugh, 1 April this year is no joke, as thousands of the poorest citizens will see cuts to their housing benefits (Rogue landlords a growing problem, Shelter warns, 30 March). A series of very unfunny cuts to vital benefits, targeting some of society's most vulnerable people, start today; by the end of 2012 around 1 million people will be worse off. Typically households will lose £12 a week, but for many it will be far more, and they will struggle to make up the difference between their benefit and the rent. We fear many will have to move and risk ending up homeless.
The government seems determined to make the worst-off pay for the mistakes of the richest, as these cuts bear down not just on the unemployed, but on the low-paid, the sick and the elderly. Their welfare reform bill is also set to cut the link between housing costs and benefit levels. Ministers may have fooled themselves into thinking landlords will cut rents, but there is no evidence for this and, with high demand for rented properties, this gamble could lead to rising evictions.
A painful cut still to come is the so-called shared accommodation rate, where single people under 35 will see their benefits restricted to the rate of a room in a shared house. There is a shortage of this type of accommodation and, with pregnant women sharing with recovering drug addicts and ex-offenders, we are really worried this will lead to more people sleeping rough as they flee unsafe and unhappy households. This is no joke. Crisis is calling on the government to stop these foolish April cuts now.
Leslie Morphy
Chief executive, Crisis
• David Blunkett misses the vital point about the government's funding of local government (Letters, 26 March). It has indeed paid £650m to subsidise every council to keep their council tax increase at or below 0% next year. Every council has accepted a grant equivalent to an increase of 2.5% in their band D council tax to do so. It was an offer that couldn't be refused. Unfortunately, the money for it is top-sliced from the revenue support grant that is shared out between councils through a needs formula. The effect is highly redistributive between rich and poor councils – it costs a lot more to subsidise an effective 2.5% council tax cut in Surrey than it does, say, in Wigan. So, taking all government funding together, next year, deprived Dorset gets a 0.5% increase in its grant, while wealthy Barnsley suffers a 17% reduction.
Phil Coppard
Chief executive, Barnsley council
• There have been myriad articles on the cuts, and a large demonstration in London. Yet Caroline Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion, was the only speaker to suggest at least part of the obvious solution: cut Trident.
Dr Alexander Matthews
Loddiswell, Devon