The Chartered institute of Housing and the Centre for Homelessness Impact is calling for tens of thousands of the poorest PRS renters should be rehoused in social housing to save money.

The Institute undertook a joint study and states that by doing so it could save the government as much as £1.9bn a year by ‘switching’ tenants receiving Universal Credit and Housing Benefit from private rented properties to social housing.

However it is fully aware that current supplies of social housing stock is woefully short and to counter this it recommends the government to undertake a new build of 10,000 social homes a year. This would cost the public purse £40m each year but claims it could even save the government £40m a year in housing subsidies, if those tenants on benefits were moved out of the PRS or short term accommodation into social housing.

James Prestwich, director of policy and external affairs at the CIH says: “This joint report reveals the full benefit to the exchequer of building social rented homes.

“Councils currently house almost 75,000 households, at risk of homelessness, in private rented accommodation. If these households could be rehoused in social rented homes councils would save £572m a year.”

Chief executive officer for Centre for Homelessness Impact, Dr Lígia Teixeira, says: “We should ask hard questions about whether the very large sums paid in benefits to subsidise the housing costs of people on low incomes are being used in the most effective way.

“While evidence suggests this financial assistance constitutes an important part of the UK’s homelessness ‘safety net’, our report shows that it is possible to make limited resources go further: for instance, by redirecting some of this money into social housing which can be better value and more secure for tenants.”

Prior to Covid homeless families being housed in temporary accommodation was costing councils £1.5bn a year, with 80 per cent of families in short term accommodation placed in the private housing sector.