Charity calls for rent cap as 600 families face being made homeless

Published by Max Salsbury for 24dash.com in Housing and also in Central Government

A Croydon-based homeless charity has called for rent controls after it was revealed that 600 families in the borough face being made homeless because of housing benefit changes.

Charity Nightwatch believes reverting back to rent caps is the right way to reduce the housing benefits bill.

Nightwatch’s chairman Jad Adams said: “The right way to reduce the housing benefits bill is to control the rents of properties let to people on benefits, as private rents used to be controlled before 1989.

“The landlords should take their share of the problems of the recession. Tenants should not bear the entire burden.

“The Government is very protective of the idea of a free market, feeling that capping rents would be interfering with that market. However, there is no free market as the only people making housing benefits payments are the Government, which is effectively the taxpayer. So we, the taxpayers, should be dictating the terms on which these payments are made.”

A reduction in Local Housing Allowance (LHA) has led Croydon Council to predict that it will need to find homes for an extra 580 families by 2013.

Mr Adams went on: “Politicians might be less protective of landlords if they discovered how many of them are absentees living abroad. Large chunks of our housing benefits bill is being paid to people living in Southern Europe and various other exotic places.

“It’s supposed to be a national benefits scheme, not an international benefits scheme for absentee landlords”.

The housing crisis in Croydon is expected to worsen as up to 550 families migrate to the area from the more expensive parts of London.