Temporary Accommodation

(asked on 4th September 2017) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what plans he has to reduce the number of people living in temporary accommodation.


Answered by
Marcus Jones Portrait
Marcus Jones
Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip, House of Commons)
This question was answered on 12th September 2017

England has a strong homelessness safety net, providing protection to the most vulnerable in our society. Time spent in temporary accommodation means people are getting help and it ensures no family is without a roof over their head.

Homeless households do not have to wait as long for settled accommodation as the law was changed in 2012 allowing councils to place families in private rented accommodation meaning less time in temporary accommodation. The cost of temporary accommodation varies depending on the local housing market and the type of temporary accommodation used as well as the numbers of households in temporary accommodation.

We provide a Flexible Homelessness Support Grant to local authorities for them to use more strategically to prevent and tackle homelessness. This amounts to £402 million over the two years from 2017/18.

Devolving the funding to local authorities provides incentives to move families out of temporary accommodation and into settled accommodation more quickly, and with more certain upfront funding local authorities are able to tackle homelessness more pro-actively, pushing the balance of the investment away from crisis intervention and towards prevention.

The number of children living in temporary accommodation is down from its peak in 2006 but we know there is room for improvement. That is why Government is committed to setting up a homelessness reduction taskforce that will focus on prevention and affordable housing.

Also, from April 2018 we are implementing the most ambitious legislative reform in decades, the Homelessness Reduction Act. It significantly reforms England’s homelessness legislation, ensuring that more people get the help they need earlier to prevent them from becoming homeless in the first place.

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