Shelter claims high rents trap families in temporary accommodation

Shelter claims families facing homelessness cannot afford “high private rents” as it calls on Prime Minister Andy Burnham to turbocharge council housebuilding in the Autumn Budget.

According to new government statistics, 135,580 households are currently homeless and living in temporary accommodation.

Shelter claims the Prime Minister must do more to tackle rising homelessness and increase the supply of genuinely affordable social homes.

Can’t afford sky-high rents

In a press release, Shelter claimed that with housing benefits remaining frozen, “most families facing homelessness simply can’t afford sky-high private rents and without enough social homes, they end up trapped in shoddy temporary accommodation”.

According to government statistics, 177,530 children are currently homeless and living in temporary accommodation, up 5% in a year.

Sarah Elliot, chief executive of Shelter, added: “It is shameful that a record number of children are growing up without a home because decades of political failure have choked off the supply of genuinely affordable social homes.

“Right now, too many children are spending their childhoods in temporary accommodation that is barely fit for a one-night stay, let alone years on end. Whole families are crammed into B&Bs, hostels and tiny bedsits that are freezing and damp in the winter and boiling in the summer.

“October’s Budget is the new Prime Minister’s chance to turn the tide on years of spiralling homelessness and kickstart the council house revolution he promised. He can use the Budget to remove the financial barriers currently holding councils back from building the volume of social rent homes we need to end homelessness.”

End rough sleeping in our country

As previously reported by Property118, in his first Downing Street speech, Mr Burnham announced that he would ‘end rough sleeping in our country’, with ministers planning to move people who have slept rough for long periods into secure housing.

The initial measures include the ‘acquisition of suitable homes’, although no further detail was provided on where the properties would come from or how the programme would operate.