Private rent now ‘unaffordable’

Private renting has become “unaffordable” for most low income tenants as housing benefit is “so seriously out of line” with local rents, housing research has suggested.

A freeze on local housing allowance (LHA) rates since 2016 is putting low income private tenants at risk of homelessness or poverty, analysis from the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) warned.

The CIH report, entitled “Missing the Target? Is targeted affordability funding doing its job?”, said: “LHA rates are now so seriously out of line with local rents that private renting has become unaffordable for most low income tenants and this substantially increases their risk of homelessness. The longer the freeze continues, the wider the gap becomes and the more costly it becomes to restore LHA rates to their full value.”

According to the CIH’S figures, outside of London two out of every three LHA rates for shared accommodation have a weekly gap of £4 or more. More than half of rates for other property sizes have weekly gaps of £10 or more.

In London, gaps were more than £10 for shared accommodation in every local housing market area and more than half of LHA rates for every other category of dwelling had gaps of at least £30.

The CIH argued the impact of the Government’s targeted affordability funding to bridge the biggest gaps had been “negligible”.