I'm a landlord and I have had a situation where a sister co-signed for her brother who then failed to pay so I pursued her for the financial obligations she agreed to which was the point of her co-signing...to give me an outlet in the event her brother failed to pay. That's what you're agreeing to.

Honestly, for a select few tenants I would probably consider this depending on my plans for that year. The issue with accepting prepaid rent from a tenant on the provider side is that it makes it a lot harder for us to evict the tenant in the case of lease violations. So if the provider is going to accept an overall decrease in rent plus the extra risk assumed by the tenant having already paid for 12 months of housing then it will need to be a very compelling reason and a very trustworthy tenant and no first year tenant is that trustworthy.