14 COMMENT
The cost of ending homelessness
Patrick Mooney Housing Consultant
Preventing further increases in homelessness will only be possible with billions being invested in new housing, says Patrick Mooney, with record-high rough sleeping and temporary accommodation fi gures exposing the urgent need for action.
T
he overwhelming case in favour of building new homes at a rate we have not achieved in many decades, is being made for us on a daily basis by the rising tide of homelessness and rough sleeping which continues to hit new highs or lows depending on your perspective.
Coinciding with the start of Meteorological Spring, the Government released the latest homelessness fi gures. These revealed a 1. increase in the number of households living in temporary accommodation, including 1,00 children. This is the seventh time in which the quarterly fi gures have hit a new record high in the last two years.
Many of these children are living (or should that be ‘existing’) in wholly unsuitable squalor, such as a single room within a grotty B&B along with all of their family members. And in many cases they will be left there well in excess of the statutory time-limit of six weeks which is allowed by law.
IN AUTUMN 2024 A TOTAL OF 4,667 PEOPLE WERE FOUND SLEEPING ROUGH ON A SINGLE NIGHT
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n addition some , people were found sleeping rough on the streets on a single night in the Autumn of 202, an eyewatering increase of 20 on a year earlier. This number has risen for the last three years and shows an inhumane disregard for the lives of desperate people left without a safe or affordable home. Our local authorities are meant to provide a safety net and to assist people who have fallen on hard times, but after 1 years of austerity and funding cuts, the sector has been left in a precarious fi nancial situation and barely able to keep itself a oat, with dozens of councils facing the threat of bankruptcy.
SPENDING REVIEW
Council staff are being asked to manage with wholly inadequate resources – and in reality the true picture is probably far worse than the one painted by the statistics – with no respite in sight.
The forthcoming Spending Review (in June) will show us just how seriously the Government is taking this problem. The review is a crucial opportunity to restore sustainability to local government budgets, much of which
are currently taken up by skyrocketing levels of demand for homelessness support and adult and children’s social care which councils have a legal duty to provide.
The need for urgent action is further underpinned by further statistics which reveal: • A total 2,30 households are living in B&Bs and hostels, which is the most damaging form of temporary accommodation for children – a rise of 1 in a year;
• 3,90 households have been uprooted to out of area temporary accommodation away from the support of families and friends a 2 rise in a year; and
• The number of people sleeping rough in England has more than doubled since 2010 when the data started being collected up by 1 overall.
The housing charity and campaigning group Shelter is urging the Government to use the Spending Review to invest in building a new generation of social rent homes that will tackle the housing emergency head on and end homelessness for good. Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, said: “It is unacceptable that homelessness continues to rocket when the Government has the power to end it entirely. Thousands of children are being robbed of stability in temporary accommodation, crammed into B&Bs and hostels without any space to sleep, play or do their homework. Whole families are being uprooted at a moment’s notice, forcing children to travel hours to school, leaving them exhausted and falling behind. “Homelessness has a simple solution – a safe, secure social rent home gives everyone the chance to succeed, but there’s nowhere near enough. If the Government is serious about tackling the housing emergency, we must see ambitious investment in social housing in June’s Spending Review. Investing in 90,000 social rent homes a year for 10 years would give families a fi ghting chance and end homelessness for good.”
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