Councils Told To House All Rough Sleepers In England By Weekend

Councils have been given 48 hours to find emergency accommodation for all rough sleepers in England following an unprecedented, but unfunded, request from the government that all homeless people should be housed by Sunday (29 March). Council officials welcomed the urgency of the request but expressed concern about the difficulty of the task, given the already acute accommodation shortages. These shortages worsened this week after a parallel government instruction to hotels to close. The Local Government Association (LGA) said councils would need extra funding if they were to meet the deadline. Read more on the Guardian website.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/27/councils-told-to-house-all-rough-sleepers-in-england-by-weekend

Ministers To Reverse Universal Credit Policy For Homeless Families

Ministers are to bow to pressure to exclude homeless families from universal credit after it emerged that design flaws in the troubled new benefits system have triggered an explosion in rent arrears, costing council tax payers millions of pounds. Local authorities in London say rent collection levels for homeless tenants placed in emergency accommodation have collapsed following the introduction of the universal credit digital service last year. Croydon council says it faces an unpaid £2.5m rent bill this year as a result, and has warned ministers this scale of losses is unsustainable. It said the costs were leaving councils potentially unable to meet their statutory duties under homelessness law. Read more on the Guardian website.

Benefit Freeze Leaves Families Facing Steep Rent Rise Or Eviction

Families who rely on state help to pay their rent will have to find hundreds of pounds extra every month to to avoid eviction because of the government’s freeze on housing benefit, Shelter has warned. Demands from Shelter and other housing organisations for a government rethink come as a number of local authorities report that many of those being evicted and rendered homeless are now in full-time work, typically in public sector jobs such as teaching or nursing.  Ahead of the budget, the charities are calling on ministers to end the freeze, which is set to run until 2020, and to build more affordable homes in areas of need, or to risk a further explosion in the already rapidly rising numbers being placed in costly emergency accommodation by their local authorities. Read more on the Observer website.

Homelessness Reduction Bill Moves To The House Of Lords

The Homelessness Reduction Bill has passed the relevant stages in the House of Commons. It will now move to the House of Lords for its first reading on the 24 February 2017. There have been a number of changes to the Bill since it was introduced, including:

·         Removal of the requirement for local authorities to provide 56-days emergency accommodation for homeless people and rough sleepers with no safe place to stay.

·         Clarification that a local authority’s duty to prevent homelessness begins on receipt of a valid section 21 notice. Local authorities do not need to wait until a court order/bailiff’s warrant has been issued.

·         A limitation on the circumstances in which households can be found to be non-cooperative.

Read more on the Homeless Link website.

There Are Children Dying At The Sharp End Of The Housing Crisis

Too often, complaints about the housing crisis are dismissed as plaintive mewlings of the metropolitan moneyed class, disgruntled at their state. But for some people, the housing crisis is a matter of life and death. Two stories in particular pull this into sharp aspect. In late September, two-month-old Donald, sleeping with his homeless parents in a car in Bournemouth, died during the night. The parents had approached two councils for help but were told they did not qualify for emergency accommodation. Now Warwickshire county council have published the findings of a serious case review that saw a 10-week-old premature baby named in the review as “John” die on the night his parents were evicted from their housing association home. Read more on the Guardian website.

Charity Gives London’s Young Homeless Tickets To Sleep On Night Buses

Homeless young people, unable to find beds in emergency hostels, are being given bus tickets to allow them to sleep on London’s night buses as the number of people sleeping rough in the capital soars, a leading homelessness charity has revealed. New Horizon Youth Centre, a day centre in central London that tries to find emergency accommodation for vulnerable young people in crisis situations, said staff distributed bus tickets on a regular basis, and gave young people details about the best routes looping around the capital through the night, so they could have a safe place to sleep. Read more on the Guardian website.

Council May Buy Properties to House Homeless

Bournemouth Borough Council would set up a private sector landlord company to allow it to rent directly to people in need of emergency accommodation. It is thought the plan could cut spending on bed and breakfast accommodation. If the proposals are agreed, the authority said it expects to buy about 60 properties over three years at a cost of £10m. They would also include the purchase of further properties for its own housing stock to rent. The scheme would be funded using a combination of council funding and a loan. Read more on the BBC website.

Homelessness Crisis: One in 25 London Children Lives In Temporary Accommodation

One in 25 children in London is homeless. More than 72,000 young people have no permanent home, with many living in cramped conditions in emergency hostels and B&Bs. The government figures show four per cent of children are now living in temporary accommodation — a rise of 25 per cent in three years. It means 80 per cent of all homeless children in England are in the capital. In some boroughs, including Haringey and Westminster, the figure is as high as one in 10. Campaigners said they demonstrated the scale of inequality in London, which is also home to hundreds of thousands of millionaires. Read more on the Evening Standard website. 

Labour Highlights Rise in Number of Families ‘Illegally Housed’ In UK

Nearly 90,000 children will be forced to spend Christmas in emergency temporary accommodation as the costs of the housing crisis escalate to £2.8bn over the course of this parliament, Labour has claimed. Shadow housing minister Emma Reynolds said that new figures, which show a dramatic increase in the number of families with children “illegally housed” in bed and breakfast accommodation, highlight the failure of the government to deal with the housing crisis. Reynolds spoke out after homelessness statistics from the CLG showed that 60,940 families will be spending Christmas in emergency temporary accommodation. This includes 87,420 children and marks an increase of 20% since 2010. Read more on the Guardian website.

Record Number of Homeless Families in ‘Out Of Area’ Temporary Accommodation

Record numbers of homeless households are being placed in emergency accommodation often far from their previous home and miles from jobs, schools, family and friends, a housing charity has said. It follows the publication of the latest Office for National statistics quarterly figures which show that the number of homeless families in “bed and breakfast” accommodation – often in hostels – is at a five-year high. The housing charity Shelter warned that the spiralling increases in rent, coupled with caps on housing benefit payments, were making it harder for councils to find homeless families a safe and decent place to live in their local area. The figures show the 15,260 homeless households were rehoused in a different local authority between July and September, a rise of 123% in three years. Download the figures from the CLG website.

Charity Criticises Fewer Safe Places for Teenagers in Crisis

Practitioners are struggling to find safe places for vulnerable children due to fewer services, funding cuts and higher thresholds for intervention, according to a report by Railway Children.  An estimated 18,000 children who run away this year will sleep rough or with someone they’ve just met, many because they do not have somewhere safe to go when they need it most. The report follows the closure of all but one refuge for young runaways in the UK and evidence of patchy use of local authority emergency accommodation.  Read more on the Railway Children website.

Youth Homelessness Charity Struggles To Cope With Growing Demand

Nightstop provides safe overnight accommodation for young people but, as demand for beds soar by 300%, the charity is forced to turn away twice as many vulnerable people as before. In London, the need for Nightstop hosts has never been more urgent. Eighteen months ago, Depaul, the charity which runs Nightstop, was turning away two young people a day. In the last sixth months, that’s increased to four. Apart from two emergency hostels which are always full, there is nowhere other than the streets for young homeless people to go. It’s not just London, there’s a frightening lack of emergency accommodation for young people across the UK, and demand for the service has increased by 300% in just 12 months.  Nightstop currently only operates in 25% of the country. Read more on the Guardian website.

Housing Shortage Leaves Homeless Families ‘Stuck’ In Hostels for Two Years

Thousands of homeless families have been stuck in emergency accommodation for at least two years. A chronic shortage of affordable homes in the capital is making it impossible for thousands of families to find a permanent residence so they can leave hostels or bed and breakfasts. The housing shortage is affecting people around the country but the problem is particularly acute in London, where families are left struggling for years in cramped temporary rooms. More than 4,000 homeless families in London (41 per cent) have been waiting two years or more to get a permanent home, according to data released by councils to Shelter under Freedom of Information laws. Read more on the Shelter website.

80,000 Children Facing Homelessness This Christmas

A Shelter investigation today reveals ‘shocking’ conditions experienced by homeless families, as government figures show that 80,000 children in Britain will be homeless this Christmas. For many this means emergency housing in B&Bs, where children face particularly difficult conditions. Almost half of the families interviewed reported children witnessing disturbing incidents, including open drug use and threats of violence. One child was directly threatened by a man in her B&B after an argument over a shared bathroom. The majority of families interviewed said they felt unsafe in their emergency accommodation. Read more on the Shelter website.