Councils are spending tens of millions of pounds a year in one-off incentive payments to encourage private landlords to house homeless people, in what Generation says is blatant market manipulation.

Chief Executive, Ben Twomey (pictured), says the rental market is “like the Wild West” with landlords “often a law unto themselves, rigging the system to line their own pockets at the expense of people experiencing homelessness”.

Whilst carrying out research in the area, the campaign group‘s Freedom of Information requests found that 37 councils have spent more than £31 million on cash payments to private landlords on 10,792 occasions in 2024-25.

Manchester City Council topped the spending charts with £3.3 million, followed by Enfield Council at £2.7 million. The largest single incentives included £15,385 paid by Southwark Council and £13,500 by Camden Council.

Senseless waste

Twomey describes the payments as “a senseless waste of our public money.” And adds that, “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.”

The National Residential Landlords Association, however, have defended the schemes. Chris Norris, policy director at the NRLA, told The Guardian that incentives help landlords accept “families who were likely to fall into arrears” and tenants “perceived to represent a higher risk.”

Generation Rent estimates, however, that the collective spending could have funded 116 public libraries for a year, while Crisis charity data shows just 2.5% of private rented homes were affordable for people claiming housing benefit in 2024.

You can see the full research results here.