Will Johnson get his house in order on the homeless crisis?
THERE has been a massive increase in the number of children without a permanent home in the West Midlands.
New figures showed there were 7,460 children living in temporary accommodation in the West Midlands region.
That’s up from 6,120 a year previously, an increase of 21 per cent.
A total of 4,500 households, including 3,180 with children, were stuck in temporary accommodation in the region.
And we know that 440 homeless families with children were living in a bed and breakfast, or a cheap hotel. Another 270 were in hostels.
That’s according to figures published this week. They refer to the period up to June 2019.
It’s hard to imagine what these numbers mean in practice. But over the past 12 months or so, our reporters have been investigating what it means to be put into temporary accommodation.
As we reported, parents and children have been put into rooms with no cooking facilities, and sometimes forced to share beds, for months on end.
We discovered a family of six – two adults and four children – stranded in an Edgbaston B&B, sharing two beds between them.
A mother with Asperger’s Syndrome fled domestic abuse with her young child only to end up in a noisy B&B room alongside men with drug and alcohol addictions and criminal histories.
A young couple and their ninemonth-old baby were sent to stay in a room in a brick shed at the back of a city B&B.
Even a good hotel room – the type of place most of us might be happy to sleep in for a few nights on a holiday or business trip – is hardly suitable for a parent and child.
It’s unlikely to have any real cooking facilities beyond a kettle, anywhere to play or any opportunity for parents and children to have a moment of privacy.
Families are placed in temporary accommodation by local councils, which have a legal duty to house homeless people.
However, councils need to make use of whatever accommodation is available to them.
Birmingham, as the largest local authority in the region (and the country), inevitably had by far the highest level of homelessness. There were 5,276 children in temporary accommodation in the city, up from 4,500 a year previously.
There were 282 Birmingham families with children in hotels or bed and breakfast accommodation, although this number has fallen over 12 months. Another 232 Birmingham families with children were in hostels.
Boris Johnson promised to take measures to cut homelessness, during the general election campaign.
The Conservative manifesto includes a pledge to “fully enforce” the Homelessness Reduction Act, which came into effect in April 2018.
This means that local councils now have to give more help to people who are homeless or might lose their homes.
For example, councils now need to provide personal support and advice to everyone who is homeless or threatened with homelessness, rather
Will Mr Johnson listen? If he wants to prove he is the liberal, one-nation Conservative he claims to be, then perhaps he should
than focusing solely on people considered to be in particular need of help.
The manifesto also included a pledge to deliver “hundreds of thousands of affordable homes” and to deliver a social housing white paper, with proposals to give more rights to tenants.
And Conservatives said they would “end the blight of rough sleeping by the end of the next Parliament” (ie, before the next general election). This would be funded by increasing stamp duty, a tax paid on property purchases, for people who buy property in the UK but are not resident here.
But Andy Street, the Conservative mayor of the West Midlands, is pushing for more.
He wants the Government to give the West Midlands extra cash to build new homes. London gets £3.5 billion through what’s called an “affordable housing deal”, on the grounds that the capital has a particular problem with a lack of housing – and sky high property prices. But the mayor argues that parts of the West Midlands combined authority area have similar problems and should also get help.
He also wants the Government to increase housing benefits.
The Local Housing Allowance has been frozen since 2016, while rents have gone up 11 per cent.
And in the West Midlands combined authority, if you depend on Local Housing Allowance to pay your rent then only two per cent of properties are available to you.
Will Mr Johnson listen?
If he wants to prove he is the liberal, one-nation Conservative he claims to be, then perhaps he should.
It’s only fair to note that the huge increase in homelessness shown by the latest figures took place under a Conservative government.
Mr Johnson seems to think he can do better than his Tory predecessors, and maybe he’ll prove it.