Posted: January 24, 2025 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Bed and breakfast, Homelessness, Temporary accommodation |
Originally written as a column for Inside Housing.
Think of all the elements of the grim inheritance bequeathed to this government by the last one and perhaps the grimmest is the almost 160,000 children living, and sometimes dying, in temporary accommodation.
Homelessness minister Rushanara Ali called it ‘an absolute scandal’ in the Commons on Monday and ‘devastating’ at a Housing, Communities and Local Government (HCLG) Committee hearing on Tuesday.
One committee member spoke of meeting a constituent before Christmas who had been in ‘temporary’ accommodation for 14 years, so the entire period of Conservative-led government between 2010 and 2024.
This morning a report from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) calls it ‘unacceptable’ and ‘alarming’ that almost 6,000 homeless families with children are in bed and breakfast, the worst form of temporary accommodation that is no longer the last resort the guidance says it should be.
Of those, almost 4,000 have been in B&B beyond the increasingly theoretical six-week legal limit, a figure that is 23 times higher than in 2010.
It is a scandal that comes at a huge cost for local authorities: £3.1 billion a year for homelessness services, including £2.1 billion for temporary accommodation at the latest count.
All this should be enough on its own to condemn the Tory inheritance but it is just part of a broader failure highlighted by the PAC.
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Posted: January 9, 2025 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Homelessness, Housebuilding, Social housing, Temporary accommodation |
Originally written as a column for Inside Housing.
What’s in a target? Angela Rayner faced questions at the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee this week and gave some illuminating answers to kick off 2025.
First up was the target that is a key milestone in the government’s mission on economic growth: the manifesto promise of 1.5 million additional homes over this parliament.
The deputy prime minister faced a series of questions about whether the target is achievable and what will have to happen in later years to make up the shortfall when fewer than 300,000 a year are built in the early years.
She ran through the measures the government is taking and summed it up in an unfortunate metaphor: ‘So there are a number of levers that we’re pulling at the moment which will hopefully start to turn the tide, but it’s a bit like the Titanic, it’s not like one of the Hackney cabs that can turn really quickly. It will take more time in the early stages before we start to see the shoots.’
It’s clear what she meant but it wasn’t a good start to conjure up images of icebergs ahead. Much better was her admission that: ‘Even If I achieve and this government achieves the 1.5 million homes target, it is a dent. It is a dent in what we need to achieve as a whole country, to deliver the houses we desperately need.’
It was also good that she acknowledged concerns about development by housing associations and Section 106 while promoting initiatives to accelerate new homes and remove blockages on stalled sites. So too her emphasis on the importance of land value capture, the grey belt and the balance that has to be struck with viability.
But 300,000 new homes a year has not been achieved since the heyday of council housing so I was intrigued to see what she would say about social housing in the present day.
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Jules Birch 