Welfare Reform on the Web (November 2009): Homelessness - UK

Reforming the social housing waiting game

E. Turner

Public Policy Research, vol. 16, 2009, p. 114-119

Local authorities are legally obliged to give homeless households 'reasonable preference' in the allocation of social housing. This means that families whose threatened homelessness has been prevented by early intervention and who have been placed in private rented accommodation with a short tenancy are disadvantaged. In order to eliminate this perverse incentives for families not to approach the local authority for help in preventing homelessness, the author recommends that:

1. councils should be relieved of their duty to give reasonable preference to statutorily homeless families in social housing allocation
2. that they should be allowed to discharge their duty to homeless households by placing them in private rented housing.