7th
Sep 2023
London councils are saying there are large numbers of landlords leaving temporary accommodation agreements for homeless households.
London Councils (the local government association for Greater London representing all 32 London boroughs) recently a held survey which finds that from September 2022 to April 2023, 15 boroughs received a Notice to Quit from landlords - the legal notice requesting the for their properties to be returned. The total requests over this period resulted with 3,531 properties being taken out of the temporary housing stock.
This is in effect a 120 per cent increase on the same period in 2021-22 of 1,601 request notices and represents a 6 per cent loss of the city’s total temporary housing stock.
Under housing law all councils have a duty to find accommodation for homeless households if they qualify for help and authorities have heavily relied on the private rental sector to provide housing.
Councils arrange ‘temporary accommodation’ until they can find long-term housing solutions and can be fulfilled by private landlords, housing associations, bed and breakfast establishments, hostel or hotel rooms.
The cross party organisation says there are around 170,000 homeless across London and between April 2022 and April 2023 there was a 15.2 per rent increase of households that qualified for homelessness support from councils.
On top of this there has been a massive 781 per cent in homeless families ‘housed’ in bed and breakfast accommodation which have been there beyond the legal six week limit; there were 1,287 London families in bed and breakfast establishments in April 2023, whereas in April 2022 it was 146.
A spokesperson for London Councils says: “Turbulence in the private rented sector is a key factor behind the capital’s skyrocketing rates of homelessness.
“The combination of fast-rising private rents and a dramatic fall in the availability of rental properties is driving housing pressures in the capital to new extremes.
“Boroughs are seriously struggling to secure temporary accommodation for homeless families.
“Across London we see landlords withdrawing their properties from use as temporary accommodation, with the result that boroughs run out of alternatives and end up placing more and more families with children in unsuitable B&Bs.
“Nobody wants this happening, but boroughs face a complete lack of other options for keeping a roof over an increasing number of homeless families’ heads.
“The homelessness situation in London is becoming unmanageable. We need the government to treat this as the emergency it is and work with us in reversing the numbers relying on temporary accommodation.”
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