Gosport MP Caroline Dinenage has urged the Government to encourage local authorities to share best working practice when placing families in temporary accommodation, during questions to the Department for Communities and Local Government this afternoon.
The last decade saw a sharp spike in the number of households in all types of temporary accommodation and recent figures have shown the total number of homeless households standing at 55,300.
Efforts by the previous Government to tackle this problem resulted in households being placed primarily in B&B accommodation; however, this expensive short-term measure has led to unacceptable long-term effects on homeless people.
Calling for the Government to renew their focus on this issue, Caroline asked:
"Over 80 per cent of the families who are in bed and breakfast accommodation for longer than 6 weeks come from 15 council areas. What more can the Department do to encourage councils to share best practice in how to deal with this issue?"
The Minister responsible, Mark Prisk, expressed his agreement and replied:
"My honourable friend is absolutely right – this is concentrated in some areas for example the numbers halved in temporary accommodation in Leeds in the last twelve months but rose in Birmingham.
So we need to focus in this particular area. We're putting £1.8 million with the bed and breakfast task force to really get under the skin of why there are those local variances and make sure we tackle this problem at source."
Speaking outside the chamber, Caroline added:
"Local authorities would do well to emulate our very own Gosport Borough Council, who rarely house families in B&B accommodation - having worked hard to promote the RAPS (Rented Accommodation in the Private Sector) scheme and invested over £2m towards the redevelopment of facilities for homeless families at the Agnew Family Centre and Barclay House.
However, it is really worrying to see such varied results across different local authorities and I would urge councils with temporary accommodation problems to seek out the help they need."