Councils spent £3.5bn on temporary housing in last five years

Danthus

Danthus

Danthus

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Councils in Britain have spent more than £3.5bn on temporary accommodation for homeless families in the last five years, data obtained by the BBC shows.

In that time the annual cost has risen 43%, with councils spending £851m on temporary housing in 2015 alone.

Homeless charity Crisis said the number of people in temporary accommodation was rising at an "alarming rate".

The government said temporary housing "ensures people have a roof over their head".

But the Local Government Association said the costs were "unsustainable".

Temporary accommodation is provided to households that councils accept are homeless, but the criteria for who is eligible varies between nations.

This includes bed and breakfasts, hostels and private rented accommodation.
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Can someone explain to me why, instead of spending the money on temporary housing, the government isn't just building more houses.

I just don't get it.
 
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To provide sufficient capacity you would need to spend 5/10bn on houses. The downsides are:

Housebuilding capability is not there.
If you built in this manner you risk creating large areas of permanent social dependency. i.e. slums
Ownership comes with its own costs as a landlord for upkeep. Unfortunately the type of clientel are likely to cause more wear and tear than the average tennant.
The cost currently paid includes bills, for people who can probably not afford to pay for gas or electric you would have to fund that on top of the capital.
 
SpeedFreak said:
To provide sufficient capacity you would need to spend 5/10bn on houses. The downsides are:

Housebuilding capability is not there.
If you built in this manner you risk creating large areas of permanent social dependency. i.e. slums
Ownership comes with its own costs as a landlord for upkeep. Unfortunately the type of clientel are likely to cause more wear and tear than the average tennant.
The cost currently paid includes bills, for people who can probably not afford to pay for gas or electric you would have to fund that on top of the capital.
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But you could use a home building program to train up the people.
 
Moses said:
It'd be cheaper than paying third parties who are rinsing us for money, as well as lowering the costs overall by increasing the supply.

They people who are currently in temporary housing don't have to own these properties.

The capacity can be built up. It's not as though we need a load of homes right now and that'll be it... we need to build hundreds of thousands a year for decades and decades.
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Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it should not be done, but I can see why the powers that be don't say yes.
 
Housing is now a local,national and global commodity to be bought, sold and traded in our 'free market' economy.

The transfer of government money........our tax money, now goes to private individuals and global property companies instead of to local councils.

Some get richer to the detriment of society. Unfortunately it will always be the working poor who will come off worse in this transfer of wealth.

The trickle down politics of money flow from 'wealth creators' has slowed to a dribble (if it even worked in the first place).

Governments are scared to deflate the housing market by a mass home building program and private interests hold back large areas of prime land to get the maximum profit from any construction.

The depression of 2008 has not gone away. It's effects have only ever been delayed and spread out over a longer period of time. The next recession is always just around the bend in our global financial system and i think the next one is going to hit those who spend a large per-portion of their wages on housing particularly hard.
 
Temporary accommodation is provided to households that councils accept are homeless, but the criteria for who is eligible varies between nations.
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There's part of the reason (and I'm not trying to be political) for the excessive costs. If I remember correctly anyone from the EU (could be a law) who is working in the UK needs to be homed by our councils or something to that effect. I believe they also can jump to the front of the queue so to speak.

So by needing to house migrant workers/families (they're not the whole issue obviously but the numbers don't help), usually in areas where there is already housing shortages, councils are forced to put up people in temporary housing until a house turns up purely because there is nowhere to put anyone.

Then you have other things that reduce the amount of houses.... things like second homes (often bought by wealthy people who are from London but want a 'weekend retreat' a direct link) where they're very rarely occupied (areas near me) and subsequently push up the price of a home for local people who earn a normal wage meaning every day people need a council house too.
 
SpeedFreak said:
To provide sufficient capacity you would need to spend 5/10bn on houses. The downsides are:

Housebuilding capability is not there.
If you built in this manner you risk creating large areas of permanent social dependency. i.e. slums
Ownership comes with its own costs as a landlord for upkeep. Unfortunately the type of clientel are likely to cause more wear and tear than the average tennant.
The cost currently paid includes bills, for people who can probably not afford to pay for gas or electric you would have to fund that on top of the capital.
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Screw it, might as well create some slums - steadily sell off all the council accommodation in zones 1 and 2 and you could easily afford to rehouse all those tenants and take in another load from the waiting list. There are some council owned properties in zone one worth a million! What is the point in keeping an economically inactive person in prime London real estate? They could flog these assets and make much better use of the resources by building more, without allowing any 'right to buy' and in doing so help reduce the waiting lists too.
 
Why don't we let councils levy a tax on empty homes to make up the social housing bill. It might lower rents to get rid of the tax or flood the market and lower actual housing costs.

I wonder how it is going to be in 30-40 years when generation rent tries to retire?
 
Well played Maggie and all those that followed, selling off council houses and not doing anything near enough to provide replacement council homes for an ever growing population, now ~10+ million bigger than when Maggie started this snowball.

Well played indeed.
 
I can see the government dropping the manifesto pledge to extend right to buy to buy to housing association tenants. I see this as a good thing, even though I would benefit from it to the tune of £100,000 as I bought my flat under a shared ownership scheme.
 
lsg1r said:
There's part of the reason (and I'm not trying to be political) for the excessive costs. If I remember correctly anyone from the EU (could be a law) who is working in the UK needs to be homed by our councils or something to that effect. I believe they also can jump to the front of the queue so to speak.

So by needing to house migrant workers/families (they're not the whole issue obviously but the numbers don't help), usually in areas where there is already housing shortages, councils are forced to put up people in temporary housing until a house turns up purely because there is nowhere to put anyone.
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I don't know where you're getting your information from but it's completely false. EU migrants have no right to "jump to the front of the queue". EU migrants must pass a habitual residence test before receiving benefits and aren't subject to any special treatment in terms of social housing. In fact, the whole point of freedom of movement is that they're treated no differently to UK citizens.
 
Abraxaz1 said:
Why don't we let councils levy a tax on empty homes to make up the social housing bill. It might lower rents to get rid of the tax or flood the market and lower actual housing costs.

I wonder how it is going to be in 30-40 years when generation rent tries to retire?
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I agree with this.
 
Tunney said:
I don't know where you're getting your information from but it's completely false. EU migrants have no right to "jump to the front of the queue". EU migrants must pass a habitual residence test before receiving benefits and aren't subject to any special treatment in terms of social housing. In fact, the whole point of freedom of movement is that they're treated no differently to UK citizens.
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Maybe I'm just old fashioned but I just think UK citizens should be given priority in social housing rather than saying this recently arrived Roma family should be treated no differently to a UK family.
 
Abraxaz1 said:
Why don't we let councils levy a tax on empty homes to make up the social housing bill. It might lower rents to get rid of the tax or flood the market and lower actual housing costs.

I wonder how it is going to be in 30-40 years when generation rent tries to retire?
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They already do. But how's that fair on someone like me or you who's renovating a house and you get charged 150% council tax while doing it despite no occupancy?
 
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