Local authorities in England are paying millions of pounds a year to incentivise private landlords to house homeless families, new data has revealed.
Freedom of information requests from the campaign group Generation Rent found that 37 councils spent more than £31m on cash payments to private landlords on 10,792 occasions in 2024-25.
Ben Twomey, the chief executive at Generation Rent, told the Guardian: ‘The soaring cost of renting and the Government’s decision to freeze the local housing allowance has put councils across the country in a near impossible position.
‘In a desperate bid to avoid placing people in temporary accommodation, they’re forced to pay individual landlords sometimes tens of thousands of pounds just for them to agree to rent out their home. It’s a senseless waste of our public money.’
