Originally Posted by
artemis
elZorro suggests that that homelessness is a deliberate policy of the current government. Certainly a bad tenancy or credit record will be of interest to most landlords, and not in a good way. Not sure how that is a deliberate government policy.
Single people at the end of the queue for social housing. Not so, though the demographics of the Social Housing Register have changed. Close to half of applicants are single people or couples with no children, meaning that the properties developed over many years for families (2/3/4 bedrooms) are in shorter supply for those applicants. So they may wait longer, but not because they have lower priority.
As for your last point, that actually makes little sense financially, if you think about it. Although landlords who have been bitten before might prefer to leave places vacant until decent tenants come along. Which is actually a good financial and stress-reduction decision, as even a brief glance at some of the annual tens of thousands of Tenancy Tribunal decisions will demonstrate.