Homelessness bill doubles in five years to £2.3bn
Posted 29 Aug 2024
Today the government has published new figures revealing the amount being spent by local councils on temporary accommodation for homeless households in England in 2023/24. They reveal:
Councils spent a total of £2.3 billion on temporary accommodation between April 2023 and March 2024
This has increased by 29% in the last year and almost doubled (97% increase) in the last five years
More than one third of the total – £780 million - was spent on emergency B&Bs and hostels, which are often considered the worst type of temporary accommodation where families can be crammed into one room, forced to share beds and lack basic cooking facilities.
Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, said: “It’s absurd that we keep throwing good money after bad into grim homeless accommodation instead of investing in solutions that would help families into a safe and secure home.
“Decades of failure to build enough social homes combined with runaway rents and rising evictions has caused homelessness to spiral. Too many children are being forced to grow up homeless in grotty, cramped hostels and B&Bs, sharing beds with their siblings, with no place to play or do their homework.
“Rather than sinking billions into temporary solutions every year, the government must invest in genuinely affordable social homes and support councils so they can start building them. Building 90,000 social homes a year for ten years would not only end homelessness, they would relieve the pressure on private renting and pay for themselves through generating new jobs and creating savings for the NHS and benefits bill.”
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:
The amount spent on temporary accommodation (TA) by councils in England in 2023/24 is published by the Department for Levelling Up Housing and Communities Revenue outturn housing services, LA drop-down. The data is available here.
Councils spent £2.287298 billion on providing temporary accommodation for homeless households between April 2023 and March 2024. This figure includes the cost to local authorities of administering temporary accommodation, (£161 million across England).
We have compared 2023/24 data with 2022/23 and 2018/19 data to show the change over the last year and the last five years. The 2018/19 data is published here: Revenue outturn housing services (R04) and the 2022/23 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 in each time period (£2.125824 billion in 2023/24 and £1.080750 million in 2018/19).
The amount spent on hostels and B&Bs in 2023/24 was £779.594 million, or 37% of the total. The amount spent on just B&Bs and hostels has increased by 99% in the last five years (from £391.179 million in 2018/19 to £779.594 million in 2023/24). 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 total amount spent on TA includes Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) funding through housing benefit and the housing element of Universal Credit. 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.
Housing benefit for temporary accommodation (i.e. TA subsidy) has been frozen since 2011, while the costs of accommodation has skyrocketed. Shelter supports councils in urging the government to remove the housing benefit subsidy cap so that councils and homeless households can afford the costs of expensive temporary accommodation.
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. Shelters expert advisers offer vital support and advice to millions of families who are enduring the immense harm caused by housing emergency. Learn more at www.shelter.org.uk.