Bill for homeless accommodation soars by 25%, hitting £2.8 bn
Posted 18 Sep 2025
Bill for homeless accommodation soars by 25%, hitting £2.8 bn
Today the government has released new figures revealing local councils spent a total of £2.8 billion on temporary accommodation for 2024/25 to accommodate households who are homeless. This is a 25% increase in one year.
The figures for April 2024 to March 2025 reveal that in England:
The total amount councils spent on temporary accommodation has more than doubled (118% increase) in the last five years.
One third of the total – £844 million - was spent on emergency B&Bs and hostels, which is the worst type of temporary accommodation for families, as they have to share kitchens and bathrooms with strangers.
40% of total – over £1 billion – was spent on nightly paid, self-contained accommodation. This is a 79% increase, the biggest increase in spending in one year. This privately managed accommodation is often the most expensive, where some families are living in a room that can be just as cramped as B&Bs.
Instead of paying billions for temporary solutions, the government should focus on ending the housing emergency for good by delivering a new generation of social rent homes. Shelter is urging the government to build on the new Social and Affordable Homes Programme and set an overall national target to deliver social rent homes to ramp up to 90,000 a year for ten years.
Mairi MacRae, Director of Campaigns and Policy at Shelter, said: “While the housing emergency is draining billions in public funds, families across the country are paying the ultimate price. Money that should be helping them into a secure home is instead shelled out on grim temporary accommodation, just to keep people off the streets.
"There’s nowhere near enough social homes and as a result homelessness has reached record levels, with thousands of desperate families showing up to their council’s doorstep for help. Private providers are cashing in on this crisis, charging eyewatering sums for rooms where children are forced to eat, sleep and do their homework on beds shared with siblings.
"We can’t afford to ignore the need for genuinely affordable social homes – the only solution to the housing emergency. The government needs to ramp up to 90,000 a year by setting a clear overall target for the delivery of social rent homes."
Anyone who is facing homelessness can get free and expert advice from Shelter by visiting www.shelter.org.uk/get_help.
ENDS
Notes to editors:
Notes to the editor:
The total amount spent on temporary accommodation (TA) by councils in England in 2024/25 is published by the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), Revenue outturn housing services, LA drop-down. The data is available here.
Councils spent £2.842091 billion on providing temporary accommodation for homeless households between April 2024 and March 2025. This figure includes the cost to local authorities of administering temporary accommodation, (£173.682 million across England).
We have compared 2024/25 data with 2023/24 and 2019/20 data to show the change over the last year and the last five years. The 2019/20 data is published here: Revenue outturn housing services (R04) and the 2023/24 data is published here: Revenue outturn housing services (R04). The amount spent on administering temporary accommodation was not available as a standalone figure pre 2020/21. Therefore when comparing the figure over five years we have compared the amount spent just on accommodation excluding administration (£2.668409 billion in 2024/25 and £1.224531 billion in 2019/20).
The amount spent on hostels and B&Bs in 2024/25 was £844.236 million, or 32% of the total (excluding administration). As well as being expensive, B&Bs and hostels are regarded as one of the least suitable types of accommodation for families to live in. This is because they often involve having to share facilities (bathrooms and kitchens) and often the whole family will also have to sleep in one room. There is a six-week legal limit on families being placed in B&Bs.
The amount spent on nightly paid, privately managed self-contained accommodation in 2024/25 was £1.078283 billion. This has increased by 79% in the last year and makes up 40% of the total (excluding administration). This self-contained accommodation can be families sharing one or two rooms with their own facilities (bathrooms and kitchens).
£2.842091 is the total expenditure (total amount) spent on temporary accommodation (column E). The total amount spent on TA includes Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) funding through housing benefit and the housing element of Universal Credit (TA subsidy). The DWP sends their percentage of funding to councils to pay for costs, and councils make up the remaining from their own budgets. In addition, many households have to contribute towards their housing costs from their own incomes. This is in part because the TA subsidy has been frozen at 2011 levels.
MHCLG also publishes the net current expenditure (column I). This is the amount of money that councils have to spend on temporary accommodation from their own budgets. This excludes the funding that councils receive from DWP through housing benefit and the money that TA residents have to pay from their own incomes. In 2024/25 this figure was £1.437397 billion.
About Shelter: Shelter exists to defend the right to a safe home and fight the devastating impact the housing emergency has on people and society. Shelter believes that home is everything. Learn more at www.shelter.org.uk