A London council is relaunching an appeal for private landlords to help house homeless people with mobility issues.
Landlords in Camden and other areas are particularly being urged to come forward if they have studio flats or one or two bed properties on the ground or first floor, or a property in a block with access to a lift.
Landlords will be offered cash incentives and extensive support for them and their tenants in exchange for letting to residents who are at risk of homelessness or who are ready to move on from homelessness services and live independently.
The council cites one anonymous landlord saying: “I carefully considered the overall package, the incentive payment and local housing allowance rate offered by Camden and compared it with offers from the private market.
“Although offers from the private market were considerably better financially, I decided to accept the offer from Camden because of the commitment to help people with housing issues. I have friends who have struggled with housing issues, so I saw this as an opportunity to make a positive contribution to a solution.”
The council claims that securing suitable homes for these residents will help people who are often vulnerable and sometimes spend long periods in temporary accommodation due to a lack of suitable housing.
It will also free up council resources to provide quicker support to rough sleepers and people at risk of homelessness.
Therefore, Camden is appealing for landlords to let a property at or below the local housing allowance rate.
In exchange, the council is offering landlords a cash incentive of up to £2,000 to let a one bed property and up to £4,500 for a two-bed property as well as a package of support.
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Council cited a landlord etc. More made up quotes like generation rent, shelter My certain experience is that the council will dump their problem tenants on you and then blame you. People who are homeless often need specialalised care, such as dedicated hostels with on site support. Dumping them on unsuspecting landlords is going to cause problems for everybody.
That’s a made up quote from a non-existent landlord. Not much of an incentive. I have a dreadful tenant atm. Passed with fake referencing. Real council tenant material. Just take hard working families who appreciate things. Not someone sitting on their bottom saying I want I want etc.
These people are often homeless for a reason…
True Edwin though you forgot to mention that social landlords also get paid eye watering amounts of money to house such tenants but private landlords only get the universal credit rates!
Jim Haliburton
HMODaddy
Inviting trouble with a capital T, as soon as I see that word ''venerable'' I know they are trouble, I would give a big fat NO WAY to that one
Venerable Council Tenants - now that is an oxymoron !
Nothing would persuade me to take up this offer. It's a scandal that councils only want good tenants and they don't want to house anyone with problems. They expect the PRS to do that!! I had nice tenants who decided to move to a rough area to be nearer a relative with health problems. They applied for social housing as very few private lets there and the questionnaire asked them all about rent arrears, drug / alcohol problems etc etc basically any problems and they would not have been accepted!!
I thought those things were the entrance requirements, like a criminal record for Australia!
Its a lottery the big Organisations & Institutions are getting much more as well.
I always remember the house in Rosemont Rd, Acton W3 that was paid for by Council to house a family for £12’000 pm, when similar houses were renting @ £2’500 pm !
I sometimes house people through various Council schemes and so far they've all been fine. The one I have at the moment is a nice chap who has one of those lives where things just happen. He came to me as he was on the verge of being homeless after a relationship breakdown. The rent often comes in installments as his pay cycle doesn't align with his UC payments but it always comes at some point in the month. He reports any maintenance issues appropriately, deals with any tradesperson attendance and carries out minor repairs himself if I reimburse the materials cost. He's been my tenant for over 2 years and says he's very settled. I needed to phone the Council a couple of times to get things on track initially, mainly regarding the importance of communication, and they were great. As long as the property is in a suitable location and the rent is close to LHA level this type of letting can be fine as part of a mixed portfolio. I guess Councils can vary and maybe I'm very lucky with the Council staff in my area. The main fly in the ointment is that suitably located properties that can be viable at lower rents are often older properties with poorer EPCs. I have 6 properties at roughly LHA rent and 4 of them are EPC D. So even though I'm willing to engage with this type of letting changes to the EPC rules will probably mean it will no longer be viable.
A couple more of my even longer term tenants came with Council assistance (deposit and up front rent) and are brilliant tenants. I knew them well beforehand though so it's not quite the same.
What’s never referred to is those people that are being housed by Council are mainly living rent free, if I was getting kept by Council I would be a model Tenant.
Not in my experience, not as a landlord as I only rent to those who have no issues/story to tell, but in my job I deal with them on an often daily basis….. not a hope would I sign up for this scam, they trash places and cause untold ASB, living next to problem and vulnerable tenants can be very stressful. They need specialist housing, not the PRS.
Maybe the councils could build more council flats or is that too sensible ?
George
More Council flats would be only a short term fix as they need demolished after a few years.
A tent from Go Outdoors would be a longer lasting solution and cheaper but not sure about its EPC!
What the council’s & government need to do is start supporting private landlords not offering cash
Allow landlords to do their job with a proper business model.
They will do all the work providing they make the right money. And pay a proper tax rate. Wich allows them to offset the costs of setting it up.
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