CITY’S PRIVATE RENT CRISIS

FAMILIES ON HOUSING BENEFIT OPEN UP ON THEIR STRUGGLE TO RENT HOMES IN CARDIFF

FAMILIES on housing benefit have opened up on the struggle to find privately rented accommodation to live in Cardiff.

They have told us they are being almost completely priced out of the private rented market, with many landlords not wanting tenants on benefits even if they’re in work.

Landlords and letting agents are also demanding as much as six months’ rent up front or demanding they have guarantors earning up to £45,000 a year.

The tenants say they feel judged by landlords just for being on benefits and have appealed to them to give them a chance so they can find somewhere to live.

But a Cardiff letting agent says around 30% of its previous tenants on benefits have had issues paying rent, and said the city is a “sellers’ market” for landlords.

Almost no affordable two-bed homes are available to people on housing benefit in Cardiff, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has found.

On a single day in Cardiff, the Bureau found just three two-bed homes, from a total of 391 available, would have been affordable on the current housing benefit.

In 2016 the UK Government froze the local housing allowance – which is meant to make the cheapest 30% of the local rental market affordable – and since then rents have continued to rise.

It means the average benefit allowance would need to increase by £174 a month for someone to afford the cheapest 30% of homes in Cardiff, the investigation found.

Half the landlords contacted by the Bureau said they would not rent to people on housing benefits, while many of the rest asked for conditions such as paying six months’ rent in advance.

Mum-of-two Rebecca Powell says she spent 23 years on Cardiff’s social housing waiting list without a single offer before finally being allocated a permanent council property in April this year.

In March last year Rebecca was made homeless after being told by her private landlord in Llanedeyrn she had to leave.

Because she was on housing benefits, landlords were asking Rebecca for up to six months’ rent up front – she said she had to hide the fact she was on housing benefit just to have a chance of getting somewhere to live.

Rebecca eventually had one house lined up – but the landlord’s agent pulled out 10 days before she was due to be made homeless when they discovered she was on benefits.

When she went to the council for help, Rebecca says she actually had to be homeless before she could be prioritised for temporary accommodation.

After being moved around some temporary council properties – where she says she and her two children lived near a crack cocaine dealer and were victims of an attempted burglary – she eventually moved to Pontprennau where she now lives.

But when she was in the council’s temporary accommodation she was allegedly paying up to £200 per week.

Rebecca, who claims housing benefit but has worked as a receptionist at University Hospital Wales for 20 years, says letting agents discriminate against otherwise trustworthy people.

She said: “There are people who will wreck the house and not pay rent, but the majority of people are not like that. There are people like myself who needed that extra bit of help but we are working and are decent, honest people who are being penalised for that.

“I blame the agencies for that 100%. You meet the landlords and they know there’s no issue.

“You are discriminated against if you are on housing benefits – you are automatically assumed to be someone they are getting off the street.

“The council leave it until the very