Councils are offering landlords cash payments of up to £4,000 to accommodate homeless families as a shortage of social housing forces authorities to support the private sector with taxpayer-funded incentives.
​
The revelation comes in the same week that the Conservative party was criticised for promising to extend the right to buy to housing association tenants, which threatens to exacerbate a property shortage by selling up to 1.3m homes causing councils to struggle to replace them.
​
Many councils in London and south-east England are now advertising cash incentives to private landlords. Westminster council in central London is paying up to £4,000 to landlords who take on council tenants. PIP recently rented a property where the landlord received a £2,700 incentive payment for a one-bedroom property. 
​
Rising rents in the private sector, combined with cuts to housing benefits introduced in 2011, have made letting to councils a less attractive proposition for private landlords, while councils are faced with growing numbers of people to house.

​

Other councils have recently introduced or increased payments in a bid to sign up landlords. In November, Hounslow in west London upped its payments; in March, Basildon in Essex announced it would start paying £1,000 for 12-month tenancies and £1,500 for 24-month tenancies.