Homeless Households Double In Brighton & Hove

The number of homeless households seeking help from Brighton and Hove City Council has more than doubled, councillors were told last week.

The increase is one of the main reasons for a projected £8.9 million overspend in the current financial year.

Labour councillor Jacob Taylor asked for details about forecast overspend on temporary housing at the council’s Strategy, Finance and City Regeneration Committee meeting.

A report to the committee said that a forecast overspend of £1.8 million on temporary housing included £1 million of savings which were “unlikely to be met”.

Demand for temporary housing has increased since January, fuelling the projected overspend which is also linked to rising rents.

A key factor was nightly booked emergency housing which was forecast to overspend by £1.3 million, the report said.

An average of 153 households a night were in “spot purchased” places, more than three times higher than budgeted.

The report said that this demand was driven by private property owners selling up and evicting tenants and an increase in the number of people fleeing domestic abuse.

The council’s senior housing official, Rachel Sharpe, said that 15 to 20 households usually approached the council each week as “homeless on the day”.

But recently the number had risen to more than 50 a week.

She said:

“Housing affordability in the city is proving a problem both for those who come to see us and those who are teetering on the edge of homelessness.

“Rents in the city have increased but there have been no increases in local housing allowance rates so the contractual costs to us have also increased with our temporary accommodation costs rising around 30 per cent year on year.”

Ms Sharpe said that the gap between benefit income and the price paid by the council for emergency and temporary housing would cost about £11,500 a year for each property.

Nationally, there were 104,500 households in temporary housing which, she said, was the highest it has ever been.

Measures to reduce costs included moving people from emergency housing to senior schemes if they were over 55 and converting temporary housing arrangements into assured short-hold tenancies, let directly by landlords.

Ms Sharpe said that the demand for temporary housing would mean that measures would have to be taken to reduce other budgets within the council’s housing service.

Labour council leader Bella Sankey said that the figures were “startling”.

Outside the meeting, Councillor Sankey said:

“It’s a shameful indictment of our failed Tory government that, in Brighton and Hove, we have 50 families per week presenting as homeless.

“These are families whose lives are uprooted, turned upside down and forced into insecure circumstances, with all of the anxiety that brings.

“The Conservatives have unleashed a hurricane of homelessness throughout our country and if they had a shred of decency, they would recognise the crisis they’ve created, step aside and call a general election.”