To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to facilitate access to private rented housing for homeless people.
Answered on
16 October 2017
The Government is committed to preventing and reducing homelessness.
It is essential that good quality private rented sector accommodation is accessible for everyone. To help to tackle homelessness, we have allocated to local authorities £315 million for homelessness prevention funding until 2020 and £402 million of Flexible Homelessness Support Grant up to 2019. This can be used to pay for rent deposit schemes and other strategies to support access to the private rented sector.
We have also brought forward a range of measures to build a better private rented sector. This includes ensuring local authorities effectively tackle rogue landlords who let unfit properties and, in the Queen’s Speech, we announced our proposals to put a stop to tenants having to pay letting fees. A ban will mean tenants require less money up-front, making it easier for people to access and move around the private rented sector.
We are bringing forward a package of measures to bring fairness and consistency to people in the private rented sector. We are determined to rebalance the relationship between tenants and landlords and ensure tenants have access to effective redress.
But homelessness is not just a housing issue. That is why we are implementing the most ambitious legislative reform in decades, the Homelessness Reduction Act, which will ensure that more people get the help they need earlier to prevent them from becoming homeless in the first place.