Shelter link ‘sky-high’ rents to new homelessness cases

Nearly one third of new homelessness cases in England are due to landlords ending a private rental tenancy, Government figures show.

The proportion of households being accepted as homeless by local authorities because of the end of an assured short-hold tenancy has leapt to 30%, from around 11% five years ago.

Charity Shelter said that private rental evictions became the main cause of homelessness for the first time in 2012, as “sky-high rents”, unstable tenancies and welfare changes have left families struggling to find anywhere they can afford to live.

Campbell Robb, chief executive of Shelter, said: “The failure of successive governments to build enough affordable homes has left us with a housing market that’s totally out of control.

“As a result more and more families are finding themselves living in unstable rented homes, unable to put down roots and facing a monthly battle with sky-high housing costs.

“We speak to families every day who are struggling to cope with the cost of housing, often forced to cut back on essentials or even skip meals just to keep a roof over their children’s heads.

“With so many of us already on a financial knife-edge, all it takes is one thing like a sudden rent rise to tip a family into a spiral that ends in homelessness.”

Households can apply to their local authority for acceptance for housing assistance if they are faced with the loss of their home. They are considered homeless if they no longer have a legal right to occupy their accommodation or if it would no longer be reasonable to continue to live there.

The new figures released by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) for the second quarter of this year show that 13,140 households were accepted in the three months between April and June, which is 2% lower than during the same quarter of 2013. Of this figure, 3,930 cases were due to the ending of a short-hold tenancy.

The latest quarterly figures show that 3% of homelessness cases were due to rent arrears, 2% were due to mortgage arrears, 12% were due to a violent partner and a further 5% were because of a relationship breakdown with a partner for some other reason.

Some 15% of cases were due to parents no longer providing accommodation and 11% were due to other relatives or friends no longer providing somewhere to live.

A rental index run by LSL Property Services recently found that the average private monthly rent in England and Wales reached a record average high of £761 in August.

LSL owns chains Your Move and Reeds Rains and its report is based on rents achieved on around 20,000 properties.

Copyright (c) Press Association Ltd. 2014, All Rights Reserved.