Almost £2 million has been awarded to Dundonians this year alone to help them cope with the effects of the so-called bedroom tax.
More than 3,000 families have received grants averaging £612 from a discretionary housing payment scheme operated by the Scottish Government.
The beneficiaries include some of the city’s most vulnerable people, including an unfortunate number of the elderly and disabled.
The controversial welfare reform results in housing benefit being cut if the recipient is deemed to have an extra bedroom in their property.
Housing associations, opposition politicians and charities have all condemned under-occupancy penalty, which they say penalises some of the most vulnerable people in society.
Although removing the spare room subsidy is supposed to encourage people with additional rooms to move to a smaller property, critics say a shortage of suitable housing means many people are trapped in larger properties and have no choice but to run up huge debts as their housing benefit will no longer cover the full cost of their rent.
Local SNP politicians have heavily criticised the Conservative UK Government for the policy, with Dundee City Council’s convener of housing, John Alexander, describing it as “a farce”.
He said Dundonians had found themselves in “incredibly difficult financial situations” as a result of the tax but welcomed the funding made available to lessen the pain.
“As a result of poor decisions and inaction by the Government at Westminster, people have found themselves in incredibly difficult financial situations,” he said.
“Thankfully, the SNP stepped in to ensure that tenants did not face eviction for this ill-thought out policy.
“The ‘bedroom tax’ deprives the people of Dundee of resources that could be put to better use.
“Those resources, however, have to be diverted in order to protect some of the poorest people in society.”
In all, 3,050 discretionary housing payment applications have been approved by Dundee City Council since April, with £1,865,077 in funding handed out.
Across Scotland as a whole, 84,000 families have received discretionary housing payments in the current financial year.
Dundee City West MSP Joe FitzPatrick said: “The Scottish Government is providing £35 million to help mitigate against this unfair, deeply unpopular tax.
“This support as part of the Scottish Welfare Fund is helping those hit hardest by this assault on the least well-off people in society.”