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Homelessness fell in early 2021, but charities issue warning as measures come to an end
More than 68,000 households became homeless or were threatened with homelessness between January and March, but this represented an 11% year-on-year drop as pandemic measures took effect, according to latest figures.
Government data released today showed that 36,800 households were assessed as homeless in the three months to the end of March 2021 – a 1.7% fall on the same period last year.
A total of 31,450 households were threatened with homelessness in the period, which was down 19.4% year-on-year, according to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) figures.
The reason for the falls, according to MHCLG, were the government’s Everyone In scheme and the ban on bailiff-enforced evictions.
At the start of the pandemic last year, the government launched Everyone In to get rough sleepers off the streets.
The government has insisted that the scheme is still operating, but Inside Housing revealed earlier this month that councils have been told to close hotels used to house homeless people during the pandemic as a condition of rough sleeper funding.
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The eviction ban in England ended on 31 May.
Despite the headline declines demonstrated by the figures, charities warned over the future situation.
Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, said: “It is a scary sign of the times that even the eviction ban couldn’t stop thousands of families becoming homeless in early 2021. Now the ban has lifted, far more people could be faced with the brutal reality of homelessness.”
Shelter flagged that nearly a fifth of homeless households were placed into emergency B&Bs and hostels where “living conditions are notoriously poor and cramped”.
The most common cause of homelessness during the period was a household no longer being able to stay with family and friends, representing 32% of cases. The loss of a private tenancy accounted for 13%, followed by domestic abuse at 12% of cases.
The number of households in temporary accommodation rose 3.5% to 95,540 in the year to the end of March. Meanwhile, this year’s first quarter saw a 25% year-on-year increase in the number of single households being placed in temporary accommodation.
Jon Sparkes, chief executive of Crisis, said: “These statistics confirm that as we entered a third national lockdown, the government was right to instruct councils to redouble efforts to ensure that people were provided with emergency accommodation to shelter from the cold and rising COVID cases.”
But he added: “We must remember that living in a cramped B&B is only meant to be temporary, and until people are helped into a home of their own, we’ve not finished the job.”
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