England to spend record sum to tackle homelessness

The country is going through “the worst housing crisis in living memory,” the government has said

The UK government has announced plans to inject “the largest ever cash boost” to tackle soaring homelessness. Councils across England will receive almost £1 billion ($1.27 billion) in new funding next year, it was revealed on Tuesday.

The funding aims to prevent “households becoming homeless in the first place,” according to a press release.

The amount is equal to what councils spent on temporary accommodation for homeless families over the past year, recent figures show.

“The worst housing crisis in living memory… has left far too many families trapped in temporary accommodation with no end in sight,” said Minister for Homelessness Rushanara Ali.

Earlier this month, housing charity Shelter reported that homelessness had risen by 14% in a year, with at least 354,000 people homeless in England, including 161,500 children.

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The charity previously called on the government to “invest in genuinely affordable social homes” instead of “sinking billions into temporary solutions every year.”

The Labour government has said that “successive years of failure” to invest in prevention had resulted in a record number of households being homeless across England.

Ahead of the general election in July, which ended more than a decade of Conservative rule, The Guardian newspaper published an opinion piece identifying Tory policy decisions since 2010, such as repeated capping and freezing of local housing benefits, as a “direct cause” of soaring homelessness.

According to Shelter’s figures, the total cost of homelessness in England has doubled in the past five years, reaching £2.3 billion between April 2023 and March 2024. The figure includes £1 billion spent by councils on temporary accommodation for homeless families, and housing benefits.

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Homelessness is a pressing issue in other parts of the UK. The government in Scotland declared a national housing emergency in May. In Wales, spending on temporary accommodation rose seven-fold between 2018 and 2022. In Northern Ireland, the number of placements in temporary accommodation has risen nearly four-fold since 2019.

A recent survey suggested that 57% of the British public do not believe the government will ever be able to eradicate “significant levels” of homelessness.