Councils used private sector to stop 65,000 becoming homeless

These are the first comprehensive statistics to detail efforts to prevent or relieve homelessness when it was not the statutory duty of landlords to do so. They demonstrate for the first time the scale at which landlords are making use of the private sector to meet housing need.

Figures published in June revealed that during the same period, councils accepted just 40,030 people as being homeless, making it easier for them to access a social home.

The prevention and relief figures, published by the government last Thursday, revealed that 65,700 people were housed in the private sector or with relatives in 2009/10. Of that total, 9,500 were housed either in a house of multiple occupation or a hostel.

Charities said the government must consider both sets of figures when drawing up plans to tackle homelessness.

Mike McCall, executive director of operations at homelessness charity St Mungo’s, said: ‘These figures need to be looked at carefully alongside homelessness acceptances to give us a sense of the underlying need for secure and affordable housing.’

Charities also warned that cuts to housing benefit, proposed by the government, were also worrying given the large numbers of vulnerable people the figures reveal are being placed in the private sector.

Howard Sinclair, chief executive of homelessness charity Broadway, said: ‘If the proposed changes to the benefits system are not sensitively handled, or if reductions in budgets hit this group of people as they might because there is not statutory duty to provide for them, then we may well see a significant rise in homeless people on the streets taking us back to the levels of the early 1990s.’

Inside Housing has been campaigning for a more equitable solution to cut the housing benefit bill in its What’s the benefit? campaign.

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