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<p>The statutory requirement to consider ‘reasonable preference’ prioritises social
housing for those who need it the most. The provisions in the Housing and Planning
Act that ensure new tenancies are regularly reviewed will enable councils to get the
best use out of their social housing.</p><p>To enable local authorities to help claimants
affected by changes to Housing Benefit who need extra support, we have also increased
the level of funding for Discretionary Housing Payment to £870 million in total across
this Parliament – a notional 55 per cent increase compared to the previous Parliament.</p><p>Whilst
households who face homelessness need suitable, settled accommodation it does not
always need to be social housing. That is why we changed the law to allow authorities
to make offers of good quality private rented sector accommodation. Since 2010 our
homelessness prevention funding has helped local authorities and homelessness charities
prevent almost a million households from becoming homeless. We want this work to continue
and that is why we have maintained and protected homelessness prevention funding though
the local government finance settlement totalling £315 million by 2019/20.</p><p>The
government is also committed to delivering affordable housing. Twice as much council
housing has been built since 2010 than in the previous 13 years. The Spending Review
in 2016 allocated £8 billion to deliver 400,000 affordable homes this parliament.</p>
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