Response: Rents for Social Housing from 2020-21

By: Rhea Newman
Published: December 2018

Response: Rents for Social Housing from 2020-21

Shelter welcomes the opportunity to respond to this consultation on rents for social housing from 2020 – 2021. We are responding to emphasise the importance of ensuring rents are genuinely affordable for those currently living in social housing and for future social tenants. An affordable rent settlement is fundamental both for the wellbeing of social tenants and for encouraging investment in building vital new social housing stock. Social housing as an investment product relies not only on there being a long-term rent settlement, which gives providers certainty over how rents can change, but also on rent levels being affordable so providers have confidence that there will be effective demand for any new housing stock. When considering rent levels, the government must also consider grant funding as it’s vital to ensure that adequate grant funding per unit is provided to enable providers to charge genuinely affordable rents.