Homeless Link held an Innovation Forum in November 2024 focusing on the challenge of accessing move-on accommodation in the private-rented sector.
Attendees heard from a selection of speakers including Housing Justice who presented on their innovative property website that is transforming the way people experiencing homelessness can access private rented accommodation across London. Here's what they told us:
There are few greater illustrations of the hopeless situation that people experiencing homelessness face than what we see when they try and navigate access to the Private Rented Sector (PRS).
A visit our staff took to a night shelter in the winter of 2022 showed us just how impossible the PRS can be.
Sitting in the shelter’s kitchen were three young residents on their phones, all of them browsing mainstream property websites like Rightmove, Zoopla, and SpareRoom.
We knew these sites weren’t designed for people relying solely on housing benefit like them. They make an enquiry—no reply. They leave a message—they never hear back. These platforms weren’t built for them.
In fact, there were no platforms built for them. This needed to change.
For a very long period of time, homelessness organisations have obtained access to the private rented sector by looking in their own ‘little black book’ of contacts. These contacts would be landlords and agents in London who were letting out properties for those on housing benefit. These contacts would be obtained through word of mouth, outreach, trawling through Gumtree, or sometimes just sheer luck.
The sector tended not to share these contacts with other homelessness agencies for fear of losing exclusive access to properties for their own clients. The phrase ‘our landlords’ has become all too common.
Housing Justice believes that we cannot continue with this system. We cannot move forward in resolving homelessness while each organisation keeps its contacts siloed. When contacts are kept in silos, clients miss out on opportunities simply because they’re working with a different organisation. This creates inequality of access. Access is not based on need, but on which team happens to hold which contact. A client who accesses a project in Kingston may not hear about a property in the Kingston area because a project in Havering that knows about it does not share the information.
Housing Justice believes that we cannot continue with this system.
Also, when landlord/agent contacts are kept behind closed doors, there’s little transparency and therefore, limited accountability. If one organisation has a bad experience with a landlord but keeps it to themselves, that landlord might continue to exploit or mistreat tenants elsewhere in the system without consequence.
This is why we built the London Lettings Network.
The Lettings Network is a straightforward tool designed to list in one place all rental properties in London that have been identified as accepting housing benefit.
It eliminates the need to use multiple different sources, have insider knowledge, or develop any special connections with estate agents/landlords.
It is updated five days a week, Monday to Friday, with real time information on new accommodation, as well as allowing both caseworkers and clients to contact the estate agent/landlord who has advertised the property in order to arrange a viewing. Accessible for both desktop and mobile, we upload upwards of 150 properties a day, using AI to do this in minutes.
It means that all organisations and individuals have equal access to the latest property information, reducing the risk of missing out on opportunities due to not being connected with particular agents/landlords. Designed with the sector in mind, users can search for property at different housing benefit rates, based on the client’s age or entitlement.
For the first time, clients can search for properties themselves when it suits them - they are no longer being dependent on caseworkers to give them this information. It gives them the agency they may have lacked before.
Having everything on one platform lets organisations share experiences, flag concerns, and avoid landlords who’ve acted unfairly — something that’s impossible when contacts are siloed.
The website also has an option (funding dependent) for projects in our network to obtain the upfront costs they need to accommodate their clients in the form of rent in advance/deposit/incentive.
Since launching at the end of 2023, we've successfully moved on 150 clients to date. In November 2024, we were proud to win first prize in the London Homelessness Awards. The Lettings Network represents a step towards a more connected and transparent homelessness sector—one where property information is openly shared, making it easier for caseworkers and clients to access housing that meets their needs.
If you know of landlords or agents who accept housing benefit but aren’t listed on the site, please let us know. By breaking down barriers and encouraging information-sharing, we’re promoting a more collaborative approach.
This isn’t a zero-sum game—by sharing resources, everyone stands to gain.
