Temporary Accommodation

(asked on 27th September 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment his Department has made of trends in level of people living in temporary accommodation in the last three years.


Answered by
Luke Hall Portrait
Luke Hall
Minister of State (Education)
This question was answered on 2nd October 2019

This government has now committed over £1.2 billion to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping over the spending review period to April 2020. In 2020/2021 we are providing a further £422 million to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping. This marks a £54 million increase in funding from the previous year. This highlights the government’s continued focus on Homelessness and Rough Sleeping, and we will announce how this additional funding has been allocated in due course.

On 31 March 2019, the total number of households in temporary accommodation arranged by local authorities under homelessness legislation was 84,740. This has increased for the same quarter each year from 80,720 on 31 March 2018 and 77,220 on 31 March 2017.

The evidence suggests that more single people are receiving help than ever before. Single households now make up the largest proportion of homeless applicants. 66 per cent of households owed a duty were single households, compared to 30 per cent in Q4 2017 (prior to the introduction of the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017). Previously this group has been underrepresented in the reported statistics and it has been hard to determine what assistance has been provided to them.

Most households at risk of homelessness are having it successfully prevented. 57 per cent of the households whose prevention duty ended in this period secured their existing accommodation or were helped to find alternative accommodation.

40 per cent of the households whose relief duty ended in this period were helped to find accommodation. Altogether, 31,180 households secured accommodation through these new duties between January and March 2018.

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