HELP for those wishing to move due to the "bedroom tax" is out there.
That's the message from housing associations and North East Lincolnshire Council to tenants who are currently under-occupying their homes.
All the area's housing associations are advertising their housing stock on a shared website with tenants under-occupying their homes being given priority in bidding for houses.
However, the issue of whether there are sufficient homes for people to move to is something Shoreline chief executive Tony Bramley is only too aware of.
He said: "If everyone applies [for a move to a smaller property], we don't have enough supply and if we do have a house of the right size, the question is then, are they the sort of properties they want to move to?
"We have got a lot of one, two and three-bed properties – the biggest number of which are three bed, at a balance that has worked.
"Social housing was always about building homes for families. Going forward we might find that demand changes, there may be a bigger need for one and two-bedroom homes.
"Someone who would previously have taken a three-bedroom property when they only need two bedrooms, but would have just had a spare room, now may only take a two-bedroom property.
"If that happens, we're stuck with what we've got."
And, he added altering the mix of housing available was not as easy as simply building more homes.
He said: "The difficulty with new homes is rent levels in North East Lincolnshire are relatively low, which means rent payments alone don't provide us with enough cash for us to build new houses.
"We need subsidies to let us build homes and let them at these rates."
There are two potential sources of funding for social housing associations to do this – first of which is the Government's Homes And Communities Agency.
However, again, because of the low rents in the area, to build a £100,000 house, Shoreline would have to apply for a grant of £40,000 to £50,000.
Mr Bramley said: "We and other local housing associations have previously put bids in to it in 2011. None of us were successful.
"It is because this is a low rent area and, as a result, we have to ask for a higher grant, which makes it look poor value for money compared to areas such as York or Harrogate where the rents they command are much higher."
He added the other potential source is the local authority, which has a fund called the New Homes Bonus.
However, he said as NELC was under immense financial pressures itself, the association "can't automatically expect to get that support".
The only other means of increasing housing stock is by buying affordable housing built by developers as part of their planning permission for new developments. For every 100 homes built in the private sector, around 20 per cent have to be affordable homes, whether that's social housing or shared ownership.
Mr Bramley added: "We can buy these homes at a discount, which negates the need for a grant, but this is only useful if they are building new homes.
"We have got £10 million sitting in the bank waiting to be used to purchase and develop new homes but, because we have no grants and very little development, it's incredibly difficult to spend that money."
Social housing tenants can look for available properties by logging on to www.homechoicelincs.org.uk.
