A study by Sheffield Hallam University, commissioned by the Residential Landlords Association (RLA), involved nearly 2,000 private landlords.

Researchers found that two-thirds of landlords are not willing to let to under-35s on Housing Benefit or Universal Credit and 44% are not willing to let to students. Amongst landlords whose lettings practice had been affected by the extension of the Shared Accommodation Rate to all under 35s in 2012, 68% had reduced or stopped letting to under-35s on benefits.

According to 24 Housing, four-fifths of landlords who continued to let to Housing Benefit or Universal Credit claimants had put in place additional safeguards, the most common being the use of guarantors or asking for direct payment to the landlord. When asked what would encourage them to increase lettings to under-35s, landlords called for a reversal of recent tax increases, providing tax relief for longer tenancies and the better administration, and direct payment to the landlord, of housing costs under welfare payments. The most popular initiative that landlords wanted to see was the introduction of bond or rent deposit schemes.

Alan Ward, chair of the RLA, said: “This research suggests that landlords are moving away from accommodating under-35s, especially those who are on benefit, out of concern that they will not get paid. The report notes that landlords are not necessarily looking for higher rents or increased yields from their properties. Instead, the emphasis is on reducing risk, particularly in relation to rent arrears and the administration of welfare payments.”

“We have already held constructive talks with the government about this and we will keep the situation under review, but there is a need for policymakers to engage further with landlords to consider what more action can be taken to address this decline. Without this many under-35s are likely to struggle to access any accommodation.”

Government figures for ‘spare homes’ show the highest level in 20 years, with 1.4 million properties left empty for over six months.

Analysis of Government figures shows that there are more than one million additional homes above those required for households in the UK. This “housing surplus” has nearly doubled from 800,000 spare homes in 1996 to 1.4million homes at any one time in 2014. These “empty homes” are typically second homes, or vacant properties that are either left empty or are awaiting tenants or homeowners to move in.

The results show affluent areas, such as southwest London boroughs, have the most unoccupied houses. And, in a cruel twist of irony, the borough where Grenfell Tower burned – Kensington & Chelsea – has the highest number of empty homes!

Ian Mulheirn, an expert from Oxford Economics, told The Telegraph that the figures suggested that allowing developers to build more homes would not do much to bring down prices. He said prices are only likely to be lowered if and when mortgage rates began to rise.

Three factors drove house prices – the cost of mortgage debt, incomes of households and the supply of houses. Building more homes would lead to just increase the surplus of additional homes. He said: “The point is there are more dwellings than there are households.”

He said that relatively cheap access to credit combined with increased incomes for some middle class families had driven house prices upwards. Asked if this could be solved by building more homes, he said: “The answer is no. The question about are there enough houses, the evidence seem to suggest that there are. The evidence suggests that there are more surplus houses than there were 20 years ago.”

However, just last week figures were published showing that nearly a quarter of a million people are experiencing acute forms of homelessness across Britain, with rough sleeping set to rise by 76 per cent in the next decade unless the government takes long-term action to tackle the problem.

In what critics condemned as a ‘national scandal’ a total of 159,000 households are sleeping rough or living in unsuitable temporary accommodation and experiencing other forms of acute homelessness, marking a rise of nearly a third since 2011, according to Crisis.

Of these, 57,000 are ‘family’ households – consisting of 82,000 adults and 50,000 children – indicating that a growing number of families are being forced out of their housing and forced to live in unsuitable conditions.

Mark Scott, a specialist in residential property at law firm Blake Morgan, said: “Many homeowners might say that ‘a man’s home is his castle’ and the owner is free to leave their property vacant if they desire. However, there are a large number of empty properties in the UK and many would argue they could be put to better use.”

Britain’s homelessness crisis is predicted to skyrocket, say researchers, with rough sleeping across the UK to jump by more than three quarters (76%) over the next decade,

A new report from Crisis says that around 9,100 people were sleeping rough in 2016, with the number expected to rise to 16,000 in 2026. In 2016, 159,900 households, estimated at almost a quarter of a million people (236,000), were experiencing some form of homelessness, research carried out for Crisis by Heriot-Watt University found.

If nothing is done soon, the most acute forms of homelessness are likely to keep going up, with overall numbers forecast to rise by more than a quarter (26.5%) over the next 10 years to 202,200 in 2026, says the report. The scale of homelessness had ‘increased significantly’ (33%) across Britain in the last five years, up from 119,900 in 2011. The report states: “If current policies continue unchanged, the most acute forms of homelessness are likely to keep rising, with overall numbers estimated to rise by more than a quarter in the coming decade and two and a half times by 2041.”

Last year 68,300 households were sofa surfing, 19,300 households were living in unsuitable temporary accommodation and 37,200 households were living in hostels. Around 26,000 households were living in other circumstances in 2016, including 8,900 households sleeping in tents, cars or on public transport, 12,100 households living in squats and 5,000 households in women’s refuges or winter night shelters, it said. Households in unsuitable temporary accommodation are set to almost double, increasing 93% to 37,300 by 2026, the report added.

John Sparkes, chief executive of Crisis, said: “Crisis still exists because homelessness still exists, and today’s report makes it only too clear that unless we take action as a society, the problem is only going to get worse with every year that passes. That means more people sleeping on our streets, in doorways or bus shelters, on the sofas of friends or family, or getting by in hostels and B&Bs. In order to tackle this, we need to first understand the scale of the problem.”

Although he welcomed the Government’s pledge to tackle rough sleeping, he also urged “action and long term planning to end homelessness for good.” The report argues that a 60% increase in new housing could reduce levels of homelessness by 19% by 2036.

A Department for Communities and Local Government spokesman said: “This Government is determined to help the most vulnerable in society and we’re working to make sure people always have a roof over their head. We know this is an issue Government can’t solve alone and so welcome Crisis’s support for our commitment to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping. Alongside investing £550 million to 2020 to address the issue, we’re implementing the Homelessness Reduction Act, which will require councils to provide early support to people at risk of becoming homeless. There’s more to do and ministers will set out plans shortly.”

Judith Blake, the Local Government Association’s housing spokeswoman, raised the importance of council house building in tackling the issue. She said: “Councils want to end homelessness. As we have warned, councils are housing the equivalent of an extra secondary school’s worth of homeless children every month. For families, rising homelessness is tragic. For councils housing homeless people, it is unsustainable. Homelessness is everyone’s business, and councils need the help of health, employment and housing partners to deliver ambitions to end it.”

“In particular, councils need to be able to adapt the implementation of some welfare reforms to ensure there are housing options for people on low incomes. There is no substitute for a renaissance in council house building if we’re to truly address the rising homelessness we face as a nation. For that to happen, Government needs to allow councils to borrow to invest in genuinely affordable housing and to keep all of their receipts from Right to Buy sales, so that money can be reinvested into delivering genuinely affordable homes.”

Shadow housing secretary John Healey said: “It is a national scandal that in 21st-century Britain the number of people experiencing homelessness is spiralling upwards. These new figures are a terrible reminder of the consequences of Conservative ministers’ seven years of failure on housing. The number of people sleeping rough fell under Labour but has risen every year under the Conservatives and has now doubled since 2010.”

“This is a direct result of decisions made by Conservative ministers: a steep drop in investment for affordable homes, crude cuts to housing benefit, reduced funding for homelessness services, and a refusal to help private renters.”

The report can be downloaded here: https://www.crisis.org.uk/ending-homelessness/homelessness-knowledge-hub/types-of-homelessness/homelessness-projections-core-homelessness-in-great-britain-2017/

Liverpool City Council has revealed that we have a major problem with asylum seekers who travel to the city and have their final appeal hearing rejected – and potentially end up living on the city’s streets. And town hall bosses say the problem is made far worse by the fact that they could be actually be punished for attempting to help and house such people, although this is something the government refutes.

Cllr Paul Brant, Liverpool City Council’s cabinet member for health and social care, told the Liverpool Echo: “Liverpool is one of the few destinations where we process the final appeals for asylum claims and where people have been rejected it means they are then classified as having no recourse to public funds. The position of the local authority is that if they are then rough sleeping because they have no income, we are banned from helping them.”

He suggested that the council could be fined up to £3,000 for helping them using public funds. But this is something the government has denied, arguing that it would never fine councils for helping people on the streets.

However, Section 115 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 states that a person will have ‘no recourse to public funds’ if they are subject to immigration control – which would include those who have failed their asylum bids in Liverpool. In this case, public funds include things like income-based jobseeker’s allowance, income support, child tax credit, universal credit, working tax credit, housing benefit and crucially local authority homelessness assistance or local authority housing. This is the part that Cllr Brant says puts Liverpool City Council in an almost impossible situation. He said: “It seems crazy, partly because its a very visible problem – the people of the city want us to give some kind of support to make sure that people are not rough sleeping.”

Addressing the government directly, he said: “In cities like Liverpool, where we have a large number of people who have their final appeals for asylum dealt with – you’ve got to relax the rules on how we can treat those people. You need to give us additional support and finances so that we can deal with them, or deal with them yourselves – because this is a national government problem. Don’t just dump the problem here in Liverpool and leave us to pick up the pieces – but ban us from dealing with the problem.”

Responding to Cllr Brant’s comments, a Home Office spokesman said the country has a “proud history of providing protection to those who need it and further submissions on protection grounds lodged by failed asylum seekers are carefully considered on their merits, in accordance with our international obligations.”

He added: “Failed asylum seekers must lodge further submissions in person in Liverpool unless there are exceptional circumstances. These submissions are considered as quickly as possible to ensure that money is not spent on those who lodge unfounded claims to secure accommodation and to delay removal.”