Last month, a committee of London council leaders met to discuss how to tackle the shortage of private rented accommodation for people receiving benefits.

The rising age of the average first-time buyer has increased demand for private rented accommodation for landlords. Tenants who would have been buying their own homes five years ago find themselves renting for longer periods as house prices and the deposits needed to get on the housing ladder continue to increase and get further out of reach.

Many landlords now concentrate on that section of the tenant market at the expense of those receiving benefits, who are often seen to come with a range of problems, not least of which is the ability to pay escalating rent levels while housing benefit is capped.

We have already seen an 800% increase in families illegally placed in bed and breakfast accommodation, driven in no small part by councils having nowhere to place them as private landlords turn their backs.

The number of properties available to tenants receiving housing benefit has dropped by 20% in London over the past 18 months and this is set to continue as rent increases show no signs of slowing down.

The solution proposed by the council leaders was to call on government to introduce tax breaks to incentivise London's landlords to let to tenants on benefits. But, while many subsidies are already being cut aggressively, will the government really go for it?

Joe Halewood has pointed out that the private rented sector is already more heavily subsidised than the public sector, receiving £2.17bn in capital subsidy compared with the public sector's £1.2bn. Figures and solutions aside, at the centre of the quandary is a moral and political question: is it right to underpin the profits of private individuals, with no control over what they charge for their services, while we desperately need places for people to live?

As providers of housing and homelessness services, the idea put forward by the council leaders predictably takes a entirely pragmatic angle. The moral component must take second place to the more pressing issue of tackling homelessness.

A better offer

Councils should open their vaults and offer a range of services to local landlords, such as hotlines to housing benefit departments, support, mediation and legal advice. This has the added bonus of putting local authorities in a position where they can police the private sector from the inside by using the stick of traditional enforcement with the carrot of services that they cannot get anywhere else.

Tax breaks, on the other hand, seems to be just another example of the tired solution of simply chucking money at a problem and hoping it will go away. Regardless of the fact that it would be taxpayer money feeding an unregulated private industry operating on runaway costs.

Ben Reeve-Lewis is a tenancy relations officer for a local authority in London.

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