Councils Struggling To House The Homeless
New research reveals that the majority of councils in England are struggling to find any stable housing for homeless people in their area, leaving them forced to place more and more people in unstable temporary accommodation.
The Homelessness Monitor: England, an annual independent study funded by Crisis and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and carried out by Heriot-Watt University, is the most comprehensive homelessness study of its kind. Published every year since 2011, it includes a national survey of councils, statistical analysis, and in-depth interviews with council and national government representatives and charities working with homeless people.
Homelessness minister, Heather Wheeler, has said she has “no idea” why homelessness is rising, but is on record ruling out welfare ‘reform’ and council cuts as causes. But to Professor Suzanne Fitzpatrick, the report’s lead author, the findings are further evidence of the “profound, cumulative and adverse impact” of welfare reform on access to housing for low-income groups, especially in high-value markets.
Prof Fitzpatrick said: “The options are narrowing for local authorities charged with preventing and resolving homelessness, as benefit-reliant households are entirely priced out of the private rented sector in some parts of the country. At the same time, homeless people’s access to a diminishing pool of social tenancies is increasingly constrained by landlord nervousness about letting to households whose incomes are now so very low that even properties let at social rents can be unaffordable to them.”
“The upward trend in sharing households, and the declining ability of younger adults to form separate households across England, is testimony to the growing pressures in the market more broadly. While much attention has (rightly) focussed on the structural difficulties associated with Universal Credit, such as waiting times, the more fundamental and pernicious impacts for the poorest households are associated with the caps and freezing of Local Housing Allowance and other working age benefits.”
70% of local authorities surveyed for the report said they had difficulties finding social housing for homeless people last year, while 89% reported difficulties in finding private rented accommodation. As a result many councils have found themselves forced to place ever more homeless people in temporary accommodation, including B&Bs and hostels, leading to urgent calls for more permanent and genuinely affordable homes to be built.
The report warns that 78,000 homeless households in England are in temporary accommodation and, if current trends continue, more than 100,000 such households will be trapped in temporary accommodation by 2020. While 40% of councils in London said the number of people seeking help from their homelessness services had risen over the last year, the Midlands reported 76%, the South 70%, and the North 62%. Crisis and JRF say more must be done to solve the problem – in particular that the government must build more social housing and ensure that homeless people can access it.
