Generation Rent wants more benefit payments to tenants

Generation Rent says it has found “key barriers” preventing local people from accessing safe and secure homes, with minority ethnic people especially likely to struggle.

Generation Rent ran a survey with private renters in the London borough of Southwark between April and September – but received only 55 submissions from individuals living in the borough. It has based its findings on this.

It says 63% of respondents identified as having a minority ethnic background with a number of issues emerging, including: 

• Two in five respondents said that it took over two months to find a new home the
  last time that they moved. This rose to over half of minority ethnic renters;

• Over a quarter of respondents had been forced to move into a home they
  otherwise would have avoided because they were facing an eviction. This figure
  rose to almost 1 in 3 of minority ethnic respondents;

• Over a quarter of respondents had been threatened with an eviction, with
  over 1 in 10 saying that this had happened more than once;

• The majority of participants stated that they had found significant problems
  with a home after moving in;

• Almost 1 in 6 of minority ethnic respondents had experienced discrimination
  from a landlord or letting agent.

Generation Rent says that based on these findings it wants what it calls “improved benefits support”, increased council budgets to support better enforcement of agents and landlords; and more affordable and social homes. 

It goes on to say that the Renters’ Rights Bill must “comprehensively address the issues that tenants face and reach through to all private renters, including ethnic minority communities.”

This article is taken from Landlord Today