Why are homeless people being excluded from social housing? There has to be a better way

There is a critical shortage of social housing across the UK. This is most acute in England where we are losing more homes for social rent than we are building. Last year we saw a net loss of nearly 4,000 social rented homes against a backdrop of rising homelessness. There are record levels of households trapped in temporary accommodation and rough sleeping continues to rise, trends which are driven by a shortage of genuinely affordable homes.

Given the current shortfall in supply, how we distribute the available social homes has never been more important. This year’s UK Housing Review shows overall social lettings in England have remained relatively stable (264,000) after a sharp decline since 2019-20.

Lettings to new tenants in the social rented sector have also remained at a similar level (122,800 general needs lets) but are still 24% lower than 10 years ago. More positively, lets to homeless households have increased on the previous year (now at 75,000) and there has been a 37% increase in the last five years.

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Whilst the increase in lets to homeless households is welcome news, it is set against a significant rise in homelessness. We also know there is large variation in local practice by local authorities and housing associations when it comes to the proportions of lets being made to people experiencing homelessness.

Recent research by Crisis, conducted with Heriot-Watt University and the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence, has shone a further light on current housing association allocations practices.

It shows the difficulties people on the lowest incomes face in accessing social housing, as housing associations are forced to exclude applicants on the basis of their income. Based on a survey of housing associations across Britain, around a third of responding English housing associations said that pre-tenancy affordability checks often brought to light new information which led to an offer of housing being deemed unsuitable for an applicant.

Nearly a quarter of responding housing associations (24%) also said that households below a certain income threshold are sometimes excluded from the housing register from which they receive applications for social housing lettings.

The result is that some applicants are not considered for a social home due to fears the offer is unsuitable and they will not be able to sustain tenancies because of low incomes or insecure finances. But the question remains, if you cannot access social housing, where else are you meant to live?

We know there are huge challenges facing the housing association sector. The ongoing impact of welfare reform was a significant contributing factor in making these decisions. Restrictions to housing benefit and the benefit cap meant housing associations have needed to conduct more affordability checks.

Compounding these concerns are the ever-increasing land and building costs alongside trying to bring existing stock up to new efficiency standards.

Yet there are areas of good practice that show what can be achieved. Where common allocations policies and/or a common housing register existed across local authorities and social landlords, there were more efficient ways to allocate homes. Further, a Scottish-style system could significantly improve allocations to homeless households. While a quarter of English housing associations reported often refusing nominations from the local authority because the offer was ‘unsuitable’, this was reported by only 6% of Scottish housing associations.

A key difference between England and Scotland is the mandatory nature of ‘Section 5’ nominations, which require Scottish housing associations to rehouse statutorily homeless households referred to them by local authorities within a ‘reasonable period’ unless they have a ‘good reason’ not to do so. England’s recently published National Plan to End Homelessness is considering all levers to require social landlords to rehouse homeless households “including legislating if necessary”. This could make a large difference to accessing homes now.

While there remain structural factors that must be tackled – more investment and minimum targets for social rent homes and tackling the welfare deficit – we must ensure the very system that was set up to help people most in need does not continue to exclude people facing homelessness.

Francesca Albanese is executive director of policy and social change at Crisis. Chartered Institute of Housing’s UK Housing Review can be read here

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