“Yet another alarming rise in homelessness in our country. These numbers on temporary accommodation – up 16.3% on last year alone – make for grim reading. This is a crisis our new government must get to grips with, urgently. We can’t afford to wait for better economic times to roll over the hill.
“We must do all we can to deal with the crisis of homelessness and rough sleeping, but we have also to start reducing the number of people falling into it. The billion upon billion spent on people in poverty only maintains them in poverty; brings them relief, but not exit.
“The crisis occupies all our time, resource and energy. But if we don’t likewise turn our attentions to ‘turning off the tap’, then we will always be handling the crisis.”
Angela Rayner chaired the first meeting of the cross-government group on tackling homelessness earlier this month, calling the state of the issue a “national disgrace” and pledging to move beyond “sticking plaster approaches” to fixing it.
The statutory homelessness statistics released on Thursday (28 November) show just how far the government has to go.
The number of households approaching local authorities for support to prevent or relieve homelessness was up across the board between April and June this year.
Councils reported on 90,990 households who approached them for help – more than 10% higher than a year earlier. Out of these, 83,240 households were assessed as being owed support to prevent or relieve homelessness.
Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, said: “The only way to give every child a permanent home is for the government to build 90,000 genuinely affordable social homes a year. Until that happens, Shelter will be here to provide expert housing advice and support.”
A total of 7,040 private renting households required support after facing a section 21 eviction. That’s an increase of 2.6% as the wait goes on for Labour’s Renters’ Rights Bill to become law.
The end of an assured shorthold tenancy was the most common reason for households being owed a prevention duty by a council, amounting to 15,350 (41%) of households. The most common reasons for the end of a tenancy was a landlord wishing to sell or relet a property, representing 7,130 households and 2,810 households respectively.
Ben Twomey, chief executive of Generation Rent, said: “Government plans to end section 21 through the Renters’ Rights Bill are welcome and will stop thousands of people being made to experience homelessness because their landlord feels like getting a new tenant in.”
But Twomey warned the bill needs more limits on rent rises and to “prevent landlords using rent hikes as evictions in all but name”.
“Putting a limit on rent rises will help prevent this. Meanwhile, we need more time in our homes without fear of eviction for reasons beyond our control, and, when this does happen, financial support with the costs of moving.”
John Glenton, executive director of care and support at Riverside, said: “With more than 123,000 households and 159,000 homeless children living in temporary accommodation it is time to start treating the homelessness crisis as a national emergency.”
Glenton added that Labour promises of the “largest boost to social and affordable housing in a generation” will help to tackle the issue in the long-term but said more bed spaces and investment in hostels is needed in the short-term.
He claimed there had been no no significant investment in hostels in England since 2011 and the number of bed spaces in England had slumped by almost a quarter between 2010 and 2022.
“Tackling a crisis of this size means we must put in place effective solutions the government can deploy at a larger scale than is being done now,” said Glenton.
“However, it is crucial that the extra £233m of government funding to tackle homelessness is also invested in solutions which address the huge scale of the problem in England.
“Increasing investment in hostels and supported housing would give England the scale it needs to get more people out of temporary accommodation and into a dedicated space where they can receive the support they need to move back into mainstream housing.”
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