Activists claim black households were twice as likely to face homelessness as a result of a Section 21 eviction than their white counterparts.
Generation Rent says ethnic minorities “are still subject to persistent racial discrimination locking them out from safe and affordable homes.”
And it says as a result, black households are 13 times more likely to be in temporary accommodation.
In a lengthy statement on its website the activist group contends: “Black renter households remained consistently overrepresented in homelessness cases.
“On a national level, actual levels of Section 21-related homelessness (5000 households in a two-year period) were around double what would be expected based on Black households’ share of the renter population (5% of 50,180 cases).”
And it summarises this by saying: “These findings reflect wider patterns of racial discrimination in the Private Rental Sector.”
Generation Rent says separate historic research suggests nearly half (46%) of minority ethnic renters had experienced racism or discrimination from their landlord or letting agent.
And white applicants using the SpareRoom flat sharing website were 36% more likely to receive a positive response to rental enquiries and viewing requests than black applicants.
As a result, Generation Rent has issued another of its sets of demands of the government – to be led, within a week, by new Prime Minister Andy Burnham.
- Local Housing Allowances (LHA), frozen at 2023 levels, must be unfrozen and uprated to actual rent costs annually;
- Mandatory rent controls must limit in-tenancy rent increases to the lower of either wage growth or Consumer Price Inflation (CPI);
- Build more social homes, even if this requires more than the 1.5m new homes promised by Sir Keir Starmer for England by mid-2029;
- End Right to Rent, which activists claim “encourages racial profiling and discriminatory decision making”;
• ⁃ Free renting for two months if a tenant has to leave when a landlord sells.
