Stuck In ‘Temporary’ Accommodation For Years
More than 100,000 homeless households in England will be living in temporary housing within two years on existing trends, according to an annual state-of-the-nation report into homelessness.
The report, Homeless Monitor, says the explosion in the placement of homeless families in temporary homes, often many miles from where they work and go to school, is driven by a dwindling supply of social and private rented housing. A combination of high rents, the loss of social homes through right to buy and the impact of welfare reforms means councils in many parts of the country struggle to access settled housing as they try to tackle escalating homelessness, reports The Guardian.
Councils are left with limited resettlement options, especially in high-rent areas in the south-east, the report says, because benefit-reliant tenants are either priced out or informally barred from available stable housing. Since 2010 the numbers of homeless people in temporary accommodation has grown by 61%. Council spending on this form of housing has increased by 39% over the same period, at a cost to the taxpayer of £845m in 2016.
Temporary accommodation (including hostels and B&Bs) is provided by councils as interim housing for homeless households, but it is not uncommon for tenants to be stuck in it for years, sometimes in overcrowded, insanitary and unsafe conditions. The report identifies the government’s four-year freeze on local housing allowance introduced in 2016, which has left rent support for private sector tenants lagging far behind actual rents as both a major driver of homelessness, and a barrier to rehousing homeless households.
The monitor says it is striking how homelessness has shot up the political and media agenda over the past year. “It feels like it is, finally, an issue that can no longer be ignored as ‘collateral damage’ in the course of welfare reform and retrenchment,” it says. Strikingly, the report notes that social housing – once the main source of homes for people owed a homelessness duty – is increasingly hard to access, with two-thirds of local authorities reporting difficulties in this area, not least because of the long-term erosion of social housing stock under right-to-buy.
Polly Neate, the chief executive of Shelter, said: “Every day we see the bruising toll that living in unstable temporary accommodation – especially B&Bs and hostels – takes on people’s lives. We see children routinely fall behind at school and their health and happiness left in tatters, while their parents suffer with the heartbreaking belief they’ve failed their children.”
A spokesman for the housing and communities department said: “Everyone deserves a safe and decent place to live, and we are providing more than £1.2bn to ensure homeless people get the support they need. To ensure they can access permanent accommodation, we are also investing £2bn in social rent housing and allowing councils to borrow more to build homes.”
The monitor is commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Crisis, and compiled by a team of academics primarily from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. The report is based on a review of official data and research, alongside a survey of councils and interviews with housing experts.
