Social letting agency puts homeless on housing ladder

A social letting agency will launch in 2018, promising affordable homes for some of France's four million people who are homeless or in temporary accommodation, while guaranteeing rents for landlords.

Secours Catholique hopes to persuade the landlords of the country's 2.7million empty homes to open them up to some of the nation's less well-off families. In return for lower rents, the organisation will help ensure the properties are habitable, manage the properties on behalf of the owner, and act as guarantor.

President Véronique Fayet said she wanted to open up rental opportunities for poorer families in Ile-de-France by managing up to 200,000 properties. She said that many smaller-scale property developers in the area had been put off renting by bad experiences with tenants and that the Secours Catholique agency would aim to improve the impression of such landlords.