DESPERATE families face a breadline Easter due to a benefits payment fiasco, it emerged today.

Thousands of people are struggling with rent arrears because of a four-month backlog in housing benefits.

Cash problems are also being made worse because of government delays in sending out new tax credit payments.

Southampton City Council, in an extraordinary move, was forced to close its housing benefit office to the public for two weeks to cope with mounting paperwork.

But now families caught up in the delays say they are suffering real hardship.

One woman and her three children had to move into her mother's one-bedroom home because no money was available to cover the rent.

Today a City Council spokesman told the Daily Echo that a number of measures had been brought in to tackled the backlog problem. He also urged landlords to be patient while they process the many thousands of applications.

But one claimant said: "People are really worrying about the arrears."

For more see page 5 of tonight's Daily Echo