Housing deprivation is an important dimension of poverty. It is thus a key challenge of policy makers to secure decent housing. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the link between housing tenure types and housing deprivation in 24 European countries. Empirical analyses are based on EU-SILC 2007, enabling comparisons of deprivation across a large set of countries. A multilevel framework is employed. Two competing hypothesis are evaluated. First, whether a rental sector targeted towards low-income households, known as social housing, is successful in achieving adequate housing standards. Second, if a unified rental system covering broader income groups lowers the risk of housing deprivation. Housing deprivation is measured in terms of experiencing overcrowding and while also exhibiting any of the following deficits: a leaking roof; no bath/shower; no indoor toilet; or a dwelling considered too dark. Findings indicate a negative association between the size of the rental sector and the prevalence of housing deprivation. The organization of the rental sector appears most crucial and only the strategy of a rental sector encompassing broader parts of the population significantly reduces the prevalence of housing deprivation and its latent components. The association is robust in terms of confounding factors at the individual level and central country level contextual variables.