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Councils’ spend on housing homeless people jumps to ‘shocking’ £1.1bn
Councils’ annual spend on temporary accommodation for homeless people has risen 9% to £1.1bn, latest government figures reveal.
The figures, which cover the 12 months to the end of March 2019, show that more than 30% of the amount was spent on emergency B&Bs.
The latest figures covering the period April to June this year reveal that there were 84,470 households living in temporary accommodation, with 7,040 of those in B&Bs.
Charity Shelter branded the numbers as “shocking”.
The amount spent by councils on housing homeless people has been on the increase for a while. Over the past five years, local authorities’ spend in this area has jumped 78%.
In this period, the amount spent on B&Bs by councils jumped 111%, the figures from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government show.
Shelter said B&Bs are the worst place for families with children to live, as it often means sharing kitchens and bathrooms and a whole family may have to sleep in one room.
The amount that cash-strapped councils are having to find from their own budgets jumped 60% to £280.1m in the year, the figures also reveal.
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Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, said: “These figures are a shocking yet entirely preventable consequence of our housing emergency.
“If consecutive governments had built the genuinely affordable social homes that are needed, fewer people would be homeless and we would not be wasting vast sums on unsuitable temporary accommodation.”
The charity is calling for the incoming government to commit to build at least 90,000 new social homes a year.
This week, Shelter unveiled a new general election campaign in coalition with five charities called ‘End Homelessness Now’.
Also last week, prime minister Boris Johnson reportedly said on a visit to Nottingham: “We will devote ourselves to tackling homelessness and making sure people get a roof over their heads.”
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn last year said that, if elected, his administration would buy 8,000 properties for homeless people.
He has also pledged to eradicate rough sleeping and end the use of foodbanks in his first term.
