A North London council plans to help people trapped in temporary accommodation to move out of the city into private rentals by paying moving costs and contributing to deposits.
But Brent Council’s idea to use more private rentals to tackle the housing crisis has been branded “unrealistic” with critics accused the authority of putting more people at risk of unexpected eviction, and forcing them to move to an unfamiliar area.
In Brent, there are currently over 34,000 households on the council’s waiting list – with some having already been waiting decades for a council home. Each week, around 140 households in the borough become homeless and the situation has “reached a critical point”, according to Brent Council.
With only around 650 council homes becoming available annually – 40 per cent of which are one-bedroom properties and, therefore, too small for many families – Brent Council has suggested that the way forward for those “trapped in temporary accommodation” is to find them secure homes in the private sector.
What is Brent Council’s plan?
Rather than waiting for a council home “that may never come”, the local authority has claimed that finding “affordable, safe, long-term housing” in the private sector will allow families to “take control”. But London’s private rental market is well documented as being unaffordable for many people.
This will likely mean finding housing outside of not just the borough but outside the city altogether.
Cabinet Member for Housing, Cllr Fleur Donnelly-Jackson, said: “We fully acknowledge the hardship endured by families living in temporary accommodation, especially those who have been trapped in this situation for years.
“Temporary accommodation is meant to be a safety net, a short-term refuge for families in crisis who have become homeless. It is not a long-term solution. We have to be honest with people and the reality is that the vast majority of people in temporary housing will not be offered a council home.”
The council has outlined a range of support available to help residents find and move to homes in the private rented sector, including:
- Housing affordability assessments so residents can understand what they can afford
- Assistance searching for homes on the private market and advice on applications
- Property suitability checks to make sure they are safe and meet minimum standards
- Support with deposits, advance rent, or moving costs
- Familiarising them with the new area
- Encouraging landlords to make more stock available to those in housing need
Cllr Donnelly-Jackson said: “The council is doing everything possible to help residents navigate this extremely difficult situation. This includes offering tailored advice and practical support to explore all realistic housing options – including properties outside of London where housing is more affordable.
“We recognise that these are not easy choices. But wherever families move, we are committed to ensuring the homes are safe, suitable and affordable – and that families are supported before, during and after any move.”
Back on the ‘merry-go-round’
However, the plan has been criticised by opposition councillors and a local renters union as “unrealistic”, pushing the responsibility back on the individual, and forcing them to continue the “merry-go-round of temporary accommodation”.
As Cllr Donnelly-Jackson and other senior members of the Brent Council Cabinet have themselves acknowledged, the crisis is largely born out of “years of failed national housing policy”.
Council Leader, Cllr Muhammed Butt, has said that the only real long-term solution to the problem is a post-World War II style national house building programme, alongside increasing the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) – both of which are in the hands of central government, not the local authority.
Brent Liberal Democrat Leader, Cllr Paul Lorber, said the plan to make greater use of the private sector highlights a “lack of a plan to deal with the housing crisis locally” that will result in a further “rise in insecurity, homelessness, and continuous burden on council services”.
Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), Cllr Lorber said: “Rather than focusing on the need to deliver the thousands of additional council homes to provide secure tenancies for those on the housing waiting list, they are pushing vulnerable families and individuals into the private rented sector.
“It is expensive and does not solve the problem. Tenants in the private rented sector face higher rates of eviction, instability, and rent costs.”
Community Organiser at London Renters Union, Jacob Wills, acknowledged “the scale of the challenge” but accused the council of “falling into a defensive pragmatism and throwing up their hands”.
He told the LDRS: “It’s hard to trust an announcement that has no policy detail on how the private rented sector will change from one of the least secure forms of housing to providing ‘long-term’ and ‘secure’ housing.
“The ‘plan’ outlined – to send people away from their communities and provide ‘area familiarisation’ outside of London – is a gross injustice to long-term Brent residents who need a fighting council.”
By the council’s own admission, the number of homes available to rent privately has dropped by 41 per cent since 2017, and rents are rising faster than ever. The fear is that increasing the demand on a diminishing supply of private stock will further increase rental costs, with those people then facing eviction as prices become affordable and are forced to once again present as homeless to the local authority.
What is the solution?
Each stakeholder appears to acknowledge that the long-term solution is to build more council homes. Cllr Lorber said council housing offers “stability, affordability, and security” for people who are at risk of homelessness but accepts that the challenges the council is facing is a difficult one for it to solve.
Cllr Lorber feels the scale of the problem is so large that the responsibility of house building should be taken out of the hands of local authorities and put in the hands of central government. Unless the government prioritises the building of new council homes, he said more people will be pushed into the private sector and the homelessness crisis “will be with us forever”.
Cllr Donnelly-Jackson said: “We are delivering 899 council homes, the majority being London affordable rent over the next year. A safe and secure home opens up avenues to jobs, education and other needs and we are committed to creating places where communities can thrive – which is why Brent was one of only three London boroughs to exceed our housing delivery target last year. We also approved a total of 3,266 new homes, making us the second highest borough for housing approvals overall.”
The Liberal Democrats argue that the council’s Planning Committee has approved too many applications for expensive private sale, rather than ensuring developers meet the council’s own target of 50 per cent affordable homes. Cllr Butt points to ‘overage’ money generated from these developments as essential financial contributions towards delivering other affordable council housing schemes in the borough – including procuring land and funding the development.
Whilst also recognising the enormity of the challenge local authorities are battling with, Mr Wills believes the “power and potential” of the council should not be underestimated. He said: “[Brent Council] say that 40 per cent of new council homes are one-bed and too small for families, when it is up to them to ensure that what is built reflects the local need.”
He added: “Fifty four per cent of those on the waiting list need a family home, whereas Brent’s policy is only to require 25 per cent of new properties to be family homes.”
Another part of the solution that has been proposed by both the Labour administration and the Liberal Democrats is to increase the LHA – the amount given to residents on a low income and rent from a private landlord – to make it more affordable. However, Mr Wills suggests this will just see rental costs rising and “more public money given to private landlords”.
Instead, he claims the council should be calling for rent controls. Mr Wills said: “This would reduce homelessness from rent hikes, keep wages in the local economy, and reduce the bill for housing costs.”
Why can’t the council simply build more houses?
Cllr Butt told the LDRS that just building more houses is “easy to say” but it has become “so much harder” to do so in the current climate. Government data shows that the council spent £69.6m on temporary accommodation in the year to March 2024, an amount which Cllr Butt described as “horrific” but said the funding gap to deliver social schemes has become wider.
Cllr Butt points to rising construction costs and higher inflation rates as contributing factors to it becoming “unaffordable to build”, with schemes that were financially viable two years ago no longer being so.
These factors, alongside government changes to fire safety regulations – which includes the requirement for the retrofitting or redesign of plans to accommodate additional staircases – have contributed to the council recently announcing plans to pause the delivery of its social rent schemes due to the financial viability of these projects.
Cllr Donnelly-Jackson said: “We do have planning approval to deliver a further 263 affordable homes. While these projects are currently not financially viable, our ambitions to make them a reality have not changed, which is why we are only putting them on hold for the time being.
“We cannot outrun economic realities, and rising construction costs and borrowing rates are making it far harder for local authorities across the country to deliver housing projects. […] While it’s difficult to say in the current economic context to make estimates on when construction will begin, we remain committed to getting these homes built as soon as is possible.”
The government has recently announced £39 billion of funding will be made available for affordable housing programmes, which the council hopes will make a difference in ensuring these, as well as future schemes, are delivered.
Cllr Lorber said: “[The council] must immediately call on the government to unlock more funding, so that local authorities can start building council stock again, make it easier to utilise existing council resources, including [money from the] Community Infrastructure Levy, to help fund more council home building.”
Grant Williams is a journalist and Local Democracy Reporter (LDR) for Reach PLC, reporting on local government, politics and community issues across London. As part of the Local Democracy Reporting Service, he has contributed to Harrow Online, covering council decisions, housing developments, transport, planning matters and stories affecting local communities across Harrow and Brent.
