Posted: July 28, 2025 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Bed and breakfast, Homelessness, Temporary accommodation |
Originally written as a column for Inside Housing.
If you’re looking for a chink of light ahead of the promised government strategy on homelessness, the number of homeless households living in bed and breakfasts (B&Bs) is down for the third quarter in succession.
But it’s only a chink since government figures for the end of March saw the total number of homeless households (131,140) and children (169,050) in temporary accommodation rise to new records.
At the most expensive and temporary end of the spectrum, there were 3,870 families with children in B&Bs, down 28 per cent since Labour took power in July 2024. Of those, 2,300 had been there for longer than the six-week legal limit, a decline of 39 per cent.
However, those falls were more than matched by an increase in the use of nightly paid, privately managed accommodation. This is also expensive and temporary but self-contained so that families do not have to share a bathroom and kitchen.
This sub-sector took off after 2013 when the coalition government tried in vain to cut use of B&Bs and private landlords and management companies realised they could charge more on a nightly basis than for longer-term leases.
Over the next seven years, the number of homeless households in nightly paid accommodation doubled and since 2020 it has almost doubled again to 46,710. Since Labour came to power the number of families with children in non-B&B nightly paid accommodation has increased by 27 per cent to 32,160.
Of those, more than half (17,810) had been there for more than a year and 14 per cent (4,640) for more than five years.
By contrast, there were just under 25,990 households in private sector leased accommodation, roughly the same as in 2013 despite a doubling in the total numbers in temporary accommodation overall.
Trends like these highlight what’s at stake in the homelessness strategy both for homeless families stuck in temporary accommodation and for local authorities creaking under the strain of paying for it .
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Posted: July 4, 2025 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Fire safety, Homelessness, Leasehold, Planning, Private renting, Social housing, Welfare reform |
Originally written as a column for Inside Housing.
A year into the Labour government how should we assess its record on housing?
It’s not hard to find reasons to celebrate, from the spending review announcement of £39 billion for the Affordable Homes Programme to the creation of a National Housing Bank within Homes England armed with an extra £16 billion in financial transactions capital.
Social rent is the priority after years when it was under threat of extinction and will account for 60 per cent of the renamed Social and Affordable Homes Programme (SAHP).
Social landlords have got what they asked for on rents and the long-term plan for social and affordable housing sets out how they must improve their existing homes, professionalise their staff and give tenants more access to information.
The prospect of new financial flexibilities for local authorities and restrictions on the Right to Buy offer council housing its best opportunity in years to escape the straitjacket imposed by central government.
But there are still many gaps to be filled when Labour sets out its wider plans in a long-term housing strategy and publishes its homelessness strategy.
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Posted: July 2, 2025 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Affordable housing, Council housing, Rents, Right to buy, Social housing |
Originally written as a column for Inside Housing.
The spending review may have given us the headlines but a flurry of announcements on Wednesday fills in much of the detail about what the government is calling ‘a decade of renewal for social and affordable housing’.
On new homes, a key question was how the £39 billion will be spent over the next 10 years and, in particular, what the trade-off will be between maximising total output of affordable homes and giving greater priority to social rent.
That got an answer in an overnight press release: a renamed Social and Affordable Homes Programme (SAHP) is forecast to deliver 300,000 homes over the ten years (30,000 a year), of which at least 180,000 (18,000 a year or 60 per cent) will be for social rent.
To put this in perspective, the current AHP was originally meant to produce 180,000 affordable homes over the five years from 2021 to 2026 (36,000 a year) but rising construction costs cut that to between 110,000 and 130,000 (22,000 to 26,000 a year. Of those, just 40,000 (8,000 a year) are forecast to be for social rent.
Importantly, strategic partnerships will be able to bid for funds over the lifetime of the programme, which should give at least some protection from the risk of cuts if a government more hostile to housing wins the next election.
Another trade-off is the split between London, where higher land prices and construction costs mean more grant per home is needed, and the rest of the country.
Under the current AHP, the Greater London Authority (GLA) got £4.1 billion (36 per cent) and Homes England £7.4 billion (64 per cent) of the grant available.
Under SAHP, the GLA’s share will be cut to 30 per cent or up to £11.7 billion. It’s hard to reconcile that with the fact that more than half of the 126,000 homeless households stuck in temporary accommodation waiting for a social home are from London.
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Jules Birch 