New rules introduced to Lease Incentive programme aim to reach more people, announces Andreia Cardoso
The Regional Secretary for Social Solidarity announced in Angra do Heroísmo that the new rules on the housing support programme designated as "Families with a Future - Lease Incentive" provides for the possibility of submitting a third application and introduces changes to the maximum support limit, from 70 to 75% of the lease amount.
Andreia Cardoso spoke at a press conference to present the diploma document put under public consultation today. On the occasion, she highlighted as one of the most relevant changes “the increase of support covering all beneficiaries, which will allow them to support an effort rate not exceeding 30% of their Adjusted Monthly Income (RMC)."
According to the Regional Secretary, this change “demonstrates that the Regional Government is working on the improvement of the legislation regulating this type of support,” so that “it can reach more people” and allow “all its beneficiaries to have housing costs lower than 30%."
Among the amendments now proposed, the government official mentioned “the possibility that the lease support will now include the possibility of submitting a third application, i.e., it will be possible to benefit from this support for 15 consecutive years. In this context, the families applying in 2020 will have the possibility of benefiting from this measure for another five years," revealed Andreia Cardoso.
Additionally, the new rules will streamline the procedures for the annual renewal, which entails reduced bureaucracy. This change will make it much easier for families to renew their applications and for housing services to evaluate the respective processes.
The government official also highlighted the possibility for beneficiaries to move from their homes at any time, a situation that was only possible at the time of the second application or in very specific cases, as well as the creation of two application periods per year.
“This change also represents an increase in the base percentages for the beneficiaries of the second application, i.e., those who are benefiting from support between the 5th and 10th year, as there will have an increase over the previous percentages that, in average, will be at 28%,” said Andreia Cardoso.
Currently, 1,600 families benefit from support through the Lease Incentive programme, which corresponds to about 4,200 people. Since the creation of this programme, 3,762 families have already benefited from this support, representing an overall investment from the Regional Government of more than 20 million Euros.
“With this change, it is expected that these families who could no longer benefit from support as they had reached the maximum limit of years, corresponding to about a hundred families, can enter the 11th year of support and continue until the 15th year," said Andreia Cardoso.