We are a cross-party network, providing a single national voice for our member councils

Generic filters
Search in title
Search in content
Search in excerpt

We are a cross-party, member-led network, providing a single voice for our member councils

Temporary accommodation spend rises by a third in a year

Published: 1 October 2024
New homes under construction

District councils expect their spending on temporary accommodation to rocket by a third in just a year.

The spending warning emerges as official figures, due out on Thursday, are expected to show growing homelessness and unprecedentedly high use of temporary accommodation.

District Councils’ Network (DCN) research shows its member councils each expect to spend an average of £400,000 more on temporary accommodation this year – an average rise of 33%. Some councils expect to spend over £1m more than they budgeted earlier this year, DCN’s survey showed.

Councils would far prefer to devote their resources to ensuring affordable, high-quality homes are provided for everyone in their community than paying high fees for temporary accommodation. However, many developers are not building affordable housing, council housing has been sold off under Right to Buy and many barriers thwart the construction of new council housing. This leaves housing authorities to endure ever higher temporary accommodation bills.

DCN’s survey also shows that in August its member councils reported an average 42% increase of households in temporary accommodation on the level a year earlier, condemning thousands more children to miserable summers, often in substandard accommodation.

At the same time, one third of district councils said they struggle to recruit staff into their homelessness services. This undermines their capacity to prevent more households from being made homeless and to provide permanent homes for those already living in hotels and B&Bs.

Most of DCN’s 169 member councils are based in non-urban areas, demonstrating the housing crisis is truly a nationwide issue. Rising rents, landlords selling up and low levels of new affordable housing are only adding to the problem.

The growing financial pressure follows years in which funding for housing has not kept pace with growing demand. More than half of DCN’s survey respondents said they would need to draw down on their rapidly-diminishing reserves to set a balanced budget.

The DCN is calling on government to permanently uplift the Housing Benefit subsidy rate – currently set at 2011 rent levels – which means only 32% of councils’ temporary spend is recouped from central government, leaving council tax payers to pay the bill. We are also urging the Government to swiftly uprate the Local Housing Allowance so that it tracks local market rents.

And we need far greater investment to support councils acquiring their own temporary accommodation to ensure there is more adequate accommodation for vulnerable families. But in the longer term we need far greater investment in council housing and ability to retain existing council homes, as well as other types of affordable housing.

Cllr Hannah Dalton, DCN’s housing spokesperson, said: “The housing crisis is now blighting lives both in non-urban areas and in the inner cities, resulting in human misery from inadequate conditions and disrupted educations as children move from place to place. At the same time, it’s also leading to huge profits for some unscrupulous providers of temporary accommodation, much of which is unsuitable and overcrowded.

“The dramatic growth in temporary accommodation use is threatening the financial future of many district councils, leaving many forced to cut other services to balance the books. This simply isn’t sustainable or fair on our local communities.

“District councils want to invest in long-term solutions that ensure everyone in our community has access to a stable, secure and safe home in which they can put down roots without the prospect of homelessness looming over them.

“We need a level of investment in council housing that has not been seen in decades, the ability for councils to pause the Right to Buy when they’re experiencing a local housing crisis and long-term protection for new council homes to ensure they’re not soon sold off.

“In the same way that close partnership between central and local government ended street homelessness overnight during the pandemic, we now need to work equally closely to end the

Related Articles