Risky tenants

Would landlords be like this if it were easy to kick out problem tenants?

Private landlords are shying away from renting to homeless youth even though the Christchurch City Council is promising to underwrite their rent.

Earlier this year, the council decided it would allocate $130,000 from its housing fund to underwrite the leasing of private rental properties for the homeless.

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CMM executive director Jill Hawkey said despite the financial guarantees offered to landlords in regards to rent and repairs, many declined to allow them to rent properties that would be subletted to youth because they worried they would be noisy and annoy neighbouring tenants.

About 50 landlords had to be approached to get the two tenancies for young people.

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Council housing taskforce chairman Cr Glenn Livingstone said some of the people helped by the project had been struggling on the streets for years.

"Because of this, moving into a permanent home is literally a life-changing event for them, opening up new opportunities for the future."

Rental housing was usually not an option for homeless people because of their credit rating, tenancy history, or lack of income to pay for bonds or rent in advance.

"From a landlord's point of view, there's just too much risk there," Livingstone said.

"But with the help of the project and the significant support provided by Youth and Cultural Development, the Methodist Mission has been able to help a number of young people and families to overcome these barriers and get a foothold in warm, secure and affordable rental housing."

Barriers to exit are barriers to entry: if you can't get out of a bad situation, you take a lot of care not to enter into one in the first place. The regulations that look really nice to protect people against bad landlords help to ensure the riskier tenants have a hard time getting a tenancy in the first place.