Crisis and Resilience Fund

The government has announced new funding to support people who are experiencing financial crisis or are at risk of crisis.

This new fund, called the Crisis and Resilience Fund (CRF), is intended to help people cope with a sudden, unexpected expense or loss of income, while also supporting longer term financial resilience.

The fund will run from 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2029. Reading Borough Council has been allocated £2.3 million for the first year, from 1 April 2026 to 31 March 2027.

The Crisis and Resilience Fund includes two types of application based financial support:

• Crisis payments
• Housing payments

Support will be discretionary and based on your individual circumstances.

Crisis payments

Crisis payments are intended to help residents who are experiencing a sudden or immediate crisis, or a serious risk to health, safety or wellbeing, and who do not have the resources to resolve the situation themselves.

Crisis payments are designed to meet essential and urgent needs, such as food, fuel or other critical living costs, where support from other sources is not available in time.

Decisions will be person centred and focus on providing proportionate support where it is most needed to reduce immediate risk.

Housing payments

Housing payments are intended to closely mirror the previous Discretionary Housing Payment (DHP) scheme, providing similar support for residents struggling with housing costs, at risk of eviction, or difficulty sustaining a tenancy.

To be eligible you must be receiving Housing Benefit or the Housing Cost Element of Universal Credit and be considered to need further financial assistance with housing costs.

Assessments will consider income, essential outgoings and housing costs, and whether support will improve housing security.

Apply

Apply for a crisis payment or housing payment

The Crisis and Resilience Fund is funded by the UK Government.