Rising number of homeless paints ‘awful picture’
The number of people applying to be registered homeless in Maidstone continues to rise, councillors heard.
Between April and June 236 people applied for help with housing – up 70% from 139 people from the same period last year.
Addressing members of Maidstone Borough Council’s (MBC) policy and resources committee last Wednesday, Alison Broom, chief executive, said many cases were caused by the ending of private tenancies.
The private sector presented a double-edged challenge, she said, with high competition, rental prices which exceeded the local housing allowance and some landlords wary of taking on tenants in receipt of benefits.
To combat the problem the council has invested in its prevention services to help people before they get onto the streets and 75 were prevented from becoming homeless between April and June, up from 27 in the same period for 2016.
She said: “The number of people needing to approach us because of being at threat of or being homeless continues to increase and we continue to work with as many partners as we possibly can to reduce that and to improve the destinations for those people once we have accommodated them.”
Cllr Annabelle Blackmore, (Con) said the figures painted an “awful picture” of the borough.
“It comes down to simply if you don’t have the places to put people then rents will always remain artificially high. So there is a lesson to us all here.”
Last week communities secretary Sajid Javid said the government would create a green paper on social housing in England. This will look at measures to combat homelessness, support for leaseholders with social landlords and the problem of illegal subletting.