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Social lettings to single homeless people have fallen by nearly a third
Social housing lettings to single homeless people have fallen by nearly a third, new research from Crisis has revealed.
Single homeless people are finding it increasingly difficult to get a social housing letting, with a fall in these lettings from 19,000 a year in 2007/08 to 13,000 in 2015/16.
The proportion of new lettings to single homeless people relative to the number of new lettings overall has fallen from 12% to 8% over the same nine years.
Although homeless people face “particular barriers” in the private rented sector, Crisis also found that social lettings to all homeless people have declined “disproportionately”, which means some single people are “stuck, unnecessarily, in temporary supported housing or other temporary, insecure shelter with no route out of homelessness”.
Since the introduction of the Localism Act in 2011, councils have been allowed to restrict access to their housing waiting lists by tightening up their allocations criteria. Many councils require applicants to have a local connection and some will not allow applicants with a history of rent arrears to join the waiting list.
Crisis said these practices, particularly those focused on financial eligibility, can “screen out” homeless people.
The charity said it is “particularly disappointing” that restrictions on who is eligible for council housing are affecting single homeless people in areas where demand for social housing is lower and there is a “readily available” supply of social homes.
Housing associations are required by the Homes and Communities Agency to work with councils to meet their homelessness duties. The report said that some housing providers “are doing more than others to address the mainstream housing needs of single homeless people”.
The government must also address the “significant challenges” councils and social housing providers face in ensuring single homeless people can pay their rent “against a backdrop of cuts to housing benefit entitlement and particularly the Shared Accommodation Rate to mainstream social hosing from April 2019”.
Inside Housing carried out research last year that revealed that more than 230,000 households had been removed from council waiting lists because of stricter allocations policies that were introduced.
