Homelessness Charities Say £50m Empty Homes Fund Is Insufficient

Homelessness charities have welcomed extra government funding to bring empty homes back into use, but warn that the move is "only a small part of what is needed" to solve the shortage of new homes and reduce rough sleeping. Recently, the government announced a £50m fund to help councils take over and recommission some of the 930,000 homes believed to be empty. The fund is targeted at areas where the collapse of housing-market renewal schemes has led to large numbers of empty homes. A separate £100m programme of empty-homes grants will pay towards the costs of getting privately owned empty homes back into use, with the properties then let at an affordable rent. Charities say that this is positive – but more action is needed to ease the housing crisis. The charity Empty Homes says that while there are about 730,000 unused properties in England and 930,000 across the UK, there are 1.7 million families on waiting lists for social housing in England and 2 million in the UK. Read more on the Observer website.