This article is part of a blog series published in partnership with Academics Stand Against Poverty UK, as they develop their third manifesto audit in the build up to the 2024 election. They will analyse the policies in the manifestos in relation to poverty to assess how confident they are that they will enable British society to flourish.
In 2023, government data identified 104,510 households living in temporary accommodation, including 131,370 children. Representing a ten per cent increase from the previous year and an 89 per cent increase during the last decade, the Local Government Association estimates the £1.74bn annual cost to local authorities is enough to build 100k new homes over five years.
The 2024 election is not only an opportunity to recognise the challenge posed by temporary accommodation but also a chance for sensible policies that can address this growing problem. This is a ‘housing crisis’ which can be solved with sufficient political will.
What is driving this forward?
There are two important questions: What is driving the increase in temporary accommodation and what are the impacts?
In terms of supply, there is a shortage of affordable housing, especially social housing in areas where people want to live. This is compounded by demand factors such as affordability due to increases in precarious employment including gig economy and zero-hour contracts that contribute to stagnating living standards while house prices increase. Financial precarity has also been exacerbated by welfare reforms, such as Local Housing Allowance, failing to keep up with increases in rent. This has contributed to a downward pressure within the housing market whereby growing numbers of people are being pushed into an increasingly crowded private rented sector.
The poorest, the most vulnerable, and those facing discrimination will fall to the bottom of the housing ladder due to this downward pressure, forcing them into a spectrum of precarious accommodation such as houses of multiple occupations, temporary accommodation, hostels, bed and breakfasts, sofa-surfing and ‘beds in sheds’.
Those legally classed as vulnerable – predominantly households with children and/or those escaping domestic abuse – will be owed a duty to be accommodated. It is likely that this will be temporary accommodation, which can be an unsettling merry-go-round of sometimes unsuitable accommodations. For local authorities facing the highest demand for accommodation and in areas of highest housing costs, there is an option to accommodate people ‘out of area’ in other local authorities. This might be because of housing availability or because of cost. In 2022/23, nearly 40,000 households were placed out of area, sometimes over 100 miles away from home. This not only includes the instability of temporary accommodation but also fractures connections with families, social networks, employment, education and essential services such as health, probation and addiction support. The cost for many households will be to exacerbate vulnerabilities and lose stability, which may well also entail broader social and economic costs.
Importantly, an overlooked theme is that while temporary accommodation may constitute a crisis, the likelihood of experiencing temporary accommodation is more pronounced for Black and minoritised households. Despite those identifying as White British accounting for 43.4 per cent of London’s population, only 19 per cent of ‘applicants assessed as owed a prevention or relief duty by the local authority’ were White British. Additionally, research highlights that Black and minoritised households are disproportionately likely to be housed out of area.
Recommendations
One of the characteristics of the housing crisis is the consistently missed targets that belie any meaningful commitment. At the forefront is the popular, though unachieved, target of 300k new houses completed each year. In an age where social housing has diminished, there will be an increased emphasis on the private sector to deliver these homes.
The problem is that the UK has not seen 300k housing completions since the 1970s, at which point nearly half came from council house completions, which is an unlikely scenario today. Over the last 50 years, it is rare that private housing completions have even exceeded 200k, despite a raft of supply-side policies. Consequently, we find ourselves in a situation where neither the private sector nor the government is willing to meet our housing needs. For the most vulnerable, those in the lowest-paid jobs, people needing welfare support, and those facing discrimination, they will be most affected by the housing shortage and most likely to experience temporary accommodation.
In the short term, it may be unrealistic to expect a significant increase in housing completions, repeal of welfare reforms or government intervention to address precarious employment. However, as a way of mitigating the problems faced by many households in temporary accommodation, the following recommendations would be an important start:
- Households should not be placed in temporary accommodation with no Wi-Fi as this further fractures established connections and impedes benefit claims.
- Local authorities should align with the Local Government Association’s Equality Framework to reflect on the disproportionate placement of BAME households in temporary accommodation.
- Children in temporary accommodation should receive a guaranteed school place at a local school and the household should receive an information pack containing essential contact details for agencies in their new area.
- Government figures on homelessness should be more robust and all local authorities should return data.
- Free transport should be provided to households in temporary accommodation to partly offset some of the challenges they face.
- Local authorities should ensure households in temporary accommodation out of area have a support plan, including notifying receiving local authorities, which is a requirement of the Housing Act 1996.
Moving forward, there needs to be a review of:
- the impacts of welfare reforms, including welfare caps and limitations on Local Housing Allowance;
- local authority funding and capacity to support people;
- the undersupply of affordable housing provision that does not place an overreliance or expectation on the private sector to deliver.
For a number of years, politicians have failed to address the challenges of the housing crisis for fear that the necessary costs and policy changes may be significant. However, the growing social and economic costs of the housing crisis mean that we have now reached a point where intervention is essential, and the costs of such interventions would be an investment. As such, this is an opportunity for politicians to be bold and ambitious, and to develop a strategy that breaks the cycle of missed targets.
Steve Iafrati is an assistant professor in social policy at the University of Nottingham. His research focuses mainly on housing inequality and people’s experiences of precarity. His twitter/X is @steve_iafrati
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