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. As part of the application process for both crisis payments and housing payments, applicants will be asked to complete a ‘benefits checker’ to help determine if there are any additional benefits that the applicant could be claiming.  This is to help maximise their ongoing income and reduce the need to apply for further support in the future.

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.

Who can apply

To apply for a crisis payment, you must meet the following criteria which has been developed in line with the statutory guidance.

Residency requirements:

• Live in the Reading Borough Council area, have been placed in temporary accommodation by Reading Borough Council, or are sofa surfing/sleeping rough in the borough and supported by local services.
• Have recourse to public funds or can access support through alternative statutory powers.
• Not be a dependant, unless they are a young person without parental support.

Financial requirements:

• Be on a low income, for example passported benefit, or not receiving benefits but the household income is lower than essential household costs based on benchmark figures.
• Have savings or other capital below £1,000.
• Not have the money, resources or access to safe and affordable credit needed to deal with the immediate crisis and not go without essentials, taking on unmanageable debt or worsening your financial situation.
• Not be able to get support from anyone else in your household

Need requirements:

• Not receiving a crisis payment will put them or their household at risk.
• The crisis cannot be avoided before they receive further income.
• Not receiving support will worsen their financial situation.
• They have not received a crisis payment for the same need in the last 3 months unless there has been a material change in circumstances or a new crisis has arisen.

Where possible, the council will look to process an application for a crisis payment within 48 hours of receiving all the necessary information from an applicant.

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

If you have any queries about the crisis and resilience fund, you can contact us by:

• calling 01189 37 37 97
• emailing  moneyadvice@reading.gov.uk

More information and support

For more cost-of-living advice or support, please visit our  Money Matters advice pages. 

There are also other government funded schemes to help with the cost of living. You can find further details on benefits and financial support on the GOV.UK website. 

You can find more information about government support for rising living costs on the government’s cost of living support page. 

Resilience support

The council wants the crisis and resilience fund to bring positive, long-term change to the financial health of Reading residents.

As well as providing financial support, the council is providing access to ongoing support and urging residents to take up these opportunities to avoid falling into financial crisis in the future.

As part of the crisis and resilience fund, the council has agreed to prioritise:

• helping residents to access cost-of-living support within their neighbourhoods
• low-income families with children
• pensioners experiencing income deprivation
• creating more opportunities to save and reduce debt 
• expanding the food pantry offer within the borough
• protecting residents from the financial harm of unwanted life events

More details on how to access these resilience services will be provided once they are available.

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