New scheme to encourage private landlords to rent to Kettering's homeless families

Kettering Council has introduced a new scheme to encourage private landlords to rent out their properties to homeless households ahead of an expected surge in evictions.

The authority’s housing team has come up with a new scheme to try and relieve homelessness in the borough, which has rocketed in recent years, and is expected to rise again when landlords, currently banned from evicting tenants under emergency coronavirus measures, can once again show tenants the door from August 23.

The new scheme – called Kettering Lettings Plus – was rubber stamped by the authority’s executive on Wednesday and sets out a new package of measures to entice private landlords such as the council putting up a month’s rent in advance, providing financial guarantees and funding a damage deposit.

Grants of up to £1,000 can already be claimed by landlords to spend on works to help get their homes up to a local authority lettable standard and they can also apply for discretionary payments from the council if a change in a tenant’s circumstances leads to financial difficulties for the landlord.

Previously the authority’s housing department, which has a statutory duty to help prevent homelessness, had been trying to use affordable rented housing to place homeless households, but the housing has become increasingly scarce.

Over recent months through two new dedicated staff members, it has been forging relationships with the private sector to come up with the new scheme to help ensure tenants at risk of eviction can stay in the property as well as creating a new system whereby it has a bank of private rented houses to use. A pilot scheme involving five new tenancies has been trialled already using previously empty properties.

The report that went before the council’s executive committee said: “Working more closely with the private rented sector (PRS) would help the council in preventing and relieving homelessness.

“The loss of a PRS assured shorthold tenancy is consistently the highest cause of homelessness locally. Whilst the Government has temporarily paused evictions due to Covid-19, we expect a surge in evictions once landlords are able to pursue possession action again. The council is therefore keen to have additional tools at its disposal to negotiate new PRS tenancies and prevent evictions wherever possible. Our new PRS Access scheme aims to overcome challenges in both accessing and sustaining PRS tenancies.”

It continues: “The project is about building confidence amongst local PRS landlords and using the PRS to successfully accommodate more complex and vulnerable homeless households.

“In this respect Kettering Council needs to invest in ensuring PRS tenancies are sustained by providing practical support and financial incentives to landlords and working towards the council being a credible partner and low risk solution for PRS landlords to obtain tenants. The PRS Access project therefore has two components: 1. Practical support for vulnerable tenants and their landlords provided by specialist housing staff 2. Financial incentive package for landlords”.

Between now and April 2020 the council hopes to create 24 new tenancies under the scheme and to prevent a further 12 from failing. It says the private rented sector is more willing than before to work with the council, which it says is most likely due to the uncertain economic environment.

The move was welcomed by the opposition, but despite calling the scheme ‘imaginative and clever’ Labour leader Mick Scrimshaw said the move was a sticking plaster rather than a permanent solution.

He said: “For every time you’ve heard me calling for things to help the homeless, you’ll have also heard me talk about the reason we have our problem and that is quite simply a lack of local social housing. I don’t intend to go on again about how that has been caused by a generation of lack of council investment, but we all know the housing crisis will only really be solved when that is addressed.

“In the meantime we have this proposal which says “the council wants to reduce its reliance on the social rented sector…and make more use of …private rented properties”.

“That sounds like a policy shift to me, and if so it’s the wrong one! Yes, we should be using the private rented sector but only because the social sector isn’t currently able to provide. It’s a sticking plaster solution, although I will accept an unfortunately necessary one, but it is not the permanent answer.

“This proposal will help desperate people, but let’s not kid ourselves, it will also use public money to subsidise the private sector. Part of this proposal will allow for private landlords to have small repairs and redecorating paid for them.”

Over the past few years a wave of homelessness has hit the Kettering authority, largely driven by families being evicted by private landlords and then going to the council for assistance. In September last year the authority was housing 234 families in temporary accommodation.

The authority hopes that if successful the scheme could be taken on by the North Northants unitary council which is set to be created in April 2020 and will see the four borough and districts in the area plus the county council merged.