England to provide 3,300 homes for homeless after coronavirus
The government has vowed to make 3,300 homes available within 12 months to prevent rough sleepers housed in emergency pandemic accommodation in England returning to the streets.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) will bring forward £160m of its £381m, four-year rough sleeping services budget to be spent this year.
Six thousand “housing units” will be built using the money and rough sleepers housed through the scheme will be provided support for mental health or substance abuse issues.
“This government wants to end rough sleeping for good, and we now have a real opportunity to deliver on this moral mission,” said the housing secretary, Robert Jenrick. “This will be completely transformative and changes the lives of thousands of rough sleepers for the better.”
Jon Sparkes, the chief executive of the homelessness charity Crisis, welcomed the announcement but said he was waiting to see the details of the funding. “Is this only for the people who have been given safe accommodation in hotels, or is it also for people who have not yet been taken off the street? If it is going to be a step-change it needs to be for everybody.”
Dame Louise Casey, who is leading the government’s rough sleeping Covid-19 response taskforce, said: “We know this safe harbour is just the start – we have here an extraordinary opportunity to end rough sleeping for good.”
About 5,400 rough sleepers have been moved into hotels since the lockdown began in England and Wales after the government issued an “everyone in” directive to councils to stop the spread of the disease.
The government claims 90% of rough sleepers have been offered emergency accommodation. However, charities and voluntary organisations have reported a rise in the number of homeless in recent weeks – with hundreds of people still on the streets in London in particular.
The government’s announcement comes after a report was leaked earlier this month that suggested the government would stop funding its emergency programme to house rough sleepers in hotels – a claim the MHCLG said was “unfounded”.
This sparked fears among homelessness charities that councils could be under pressure to move rough sleepers out of hotels before it has been possible to secure long-term housing for them.
Councillor David Renard, housing spokesman for the Local Government Association, said: “While the funding for councils to support rough sleepers is positive, we still need clarity from government on what additional practical support will be available to councils to help them move people out of hotels and temporary accommodation and into housing.”
Renard also called for the government to enable local authorities to build more new homes by allowing them to keep 100% of their receipts from the sale of council homes under the right to buy scheme and to extend the deadline with which they can spend this money.
Polly Neate, the chief executive of Shelter, said: “If government truly wants to keep people off the streets during this pandemic, it must give judges the power to ensure thousands of renters aren’t made homeless when the eviction freeze ends in June.
“And ultimately, we won’t solve homelessness without building the new generation of genuinely affordable social homes that this country desperately needs.”
Ministers also announced a further £6m for frontline homelessness charities and the Department for Education will provide more than £700,000 for councils to support care leavers at risk of homelessness and rough sleeping.
