Speculation in housing places temptation in the path of investors in England. You have a three bedroom house. You could rent it to a mum with three kids. They are homeless and need something bigger than the emergency housing that is about the size of a shoebox and unregulated.
But, you could make much more if you divide the dining room and living room into bedrooms and rent to seven single people. And, there’s nothing standing in the way of doing it. Social assistance regulations allow it. And while prospective tenants have a right to complain,1 it is unlikely they will.
Never mind that the number of families in temporary accommodation is large and growing. Never mind that families are likely to be living in emergency accommodation for years while they wait for suitable accommodation to come up.
This temptation could easily be curtailed by changing the rules for issuing housing assistance, as Alan Fraser discusses in The Guardian: England’s social housing reforms are welcome, but what about private renters?
