Half of all homeless families forced to live in bed and breakfasts are in London

 
PA
Pa|Staff5 September 2013

More than half of all families forced to live in bed and breakfast accommodation for longer than six weeks are in London, official figures show.

The number of households accepted as homeless by London councils has soared by more than a quarter when compared with the same period last year, taking the national total to 13,460.

More than 2,090 households with children were in B&B accommodation at the end of June, eight per cent up on a year before. Housing charity Shelter said this was the highest level since 2003.

Of those, 760 had been there for longer than the time limit imposed on local councils for what is supposed only to be an emergency option - a rise of 10 per cent from the same time last year.

Among them were 3,580 whose private-sector tenancies had ended, up almost a third (32 per cent), directly blamed by the charity Crisis on the Government's housing benefit cuts.

Jack Dromey
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Chief executive Leslie Morphy said: "People who need the support of housing benefit to make ends meet have seen cut after cut in the amount they receive.

"We have been warning for years that this would drive up homelessness and today's figures could not be clearer.

"Thousands are becoming homeless because their housing benefit is no longer enough for them to be able to pay the rent."

More than three quarters of households in temporary accommodation included children or pregnant women - a total of 79,680 youngsters or expected babies.

Shelter said one family was now losing their home every 15 minutes, joining the attack on benefit cuts after commissioning research that found six in 10 were struggling to pay the rent or mortgage.

More than a third of families placed in B&B now ended up staying longer than six weeks, it said, sometimes sharing a single room with no cooking facilities and a shared bathroom.

Chief executive Campbell Robb said: "These figures are a wake-up call.

"Ordinary families are falling through the net and risk losing everything. We're worried about the thousands more just behind them who are living on a knife-edge, where all it takes is a sudden job loss or illness to tip a family into a downward spiral that can put their home at risk.

"A disappearing housing safety net means families will have little support left to help them get back on their feet. It's already hard enough to find a new job. Without a stable place to live, it's almost impossible.

"People may be talking about green shoots, but every day our advisers speak to people who are terrified of what will happen to them because they don't know how they will pay their rent or mortgage after a sudden drop in income.

"We are asking the Government to urgently build up the support available to families who face losing their homes. To protect the safety net that gives families who fall on hard times the advice and support they need to rebuild their lives."

Shadow housing minister Jack Dromey said: "David Cameron took office promising to tackle homelessness but there are more families without a roof over their heads and more people sleeping on our streets under this out of touch Government.

"Under the Tories we've seen the lowest number of homes built under any peacetime Government since the 1920s and the slowest recovery for 100 years.

"Labour has backed the IMF's call for the Government to bring forward £10 billion on infrastructure this year and we have said that if the entire infrastructure boost was spent now on housing, it would allow the building of around 400,000 homes across the country.

"But this out of touch Government simply refuses to act."

The figures showed foreign households accounted for 16 per cent of those accepted as homeless - up from 14 per cent last year to a total of 2,110.

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