1,000 FAMILIES LIVING IN B&Bs
HOMELESS NUMBERS TRIPLE OVER FIVE YEARS SURGE ‘COINCIDES’ WITH BENEFIT CUTS
THE number of destitute families living in Manchester’s bed and breakfasts has tripled in five years – as the city’s ballooning hidden homelessness crisis outstrips its affordable housing supply.
Hundreds of parents are now living in guest houses with their children as the council struggles to place the soaring numbers of people coming to it for help.
It is also moving more and more homeless people to Moston and Harpurhey due to a lack of affordable homes elsewhere in the city, while nearly a third are being housed outside Manchester altogether.
The biggest cause of homelessness in the city is now private sector evictions, in large part due to benefits cuts.
Two separate updates due to go to councillors next week reveal the growing scale of the crisis.
Since April the town hall has seen a 15 per cent increase in applications for homelessness support, they reveal – but even before that, the council was buckling under soaring demand. Between 2013 and 2018 the numbers of homeless families it placed in B&Bs – widely considered to be unsuitable for children due to their instability and lack of facilities – had already shot up threefold from 372 to 1,045.
Admitting B&Bs are ‘not considered suitable for families,’ the council stresses that affordable temporary accommodation of any kind is now getting harder and harder to find.
There has also been a five-fold increase in single homeless people housed by the council in B&Bs.
“The data shows an increase in the levels of homelessness presentations over the last five years and a significant increase in the use of B&B accommodation being used to provide temporary accommodation,” says one update from the town hall’s new director of housing, Jon Sawyer.
“The increase coincides with welfare changes and it is expected these figures will continue to grow as households on low incomes struggle to sustain tenancies in the private rented sector and access to social housing is limited.”
Problems in the private rented sector are now the biggest cause of homelessness in Manchester, often because welfare changes have left people unable to pay their rent. It has now overtaken domestic violence as the most common cause of destitution. Aside from those living in guest houses, hundreds of people are being moved out of the city due to the resulting pressure on housing. “The total number of households in dispersed temporary accommodation currently stands at 1,350, of which approximately 390 are placed outside the boundary of Manchester city council,” says a second update from the city’s homelessness team. “Placements in dispersed temporary accommodation are increasingly being made outside of the city due to the inability of providers to procure the amount of affordable accommodation in Manchester required to meet demand. Equally, due to pressures on the affordability of accommodation, we are increasingly procuring accommodation in particular wards in the north of the city (Moston and Harpurhey) due to the inability to find affordable accommodation in other wards and across the south of Manchester.”
Noting a national increase of nearly a third in people becoming homeless due to their assured shorthold tenancy ending, it adds: “This is also the case in Manchester where loss of private rented sector accommodation has now become the most frequent reason for being accepted as homeless.
“Welfare reforms including the capping or freezing of Local Housing Allowance rates has been a major driver of the loss of private tenancies and homelessness. These reforms have also demonstrably restricted lower income households’ access into the private rented sector.”
Despite an increase in the number of private rented homes across the
country, including in Manchester, rents have risen three times faster than wages, it adds. “Homes in this tenure are increasingly unaffordable, particularly to households in receipt of local housing allowance.”
As a result, Manchester council is now looking to contract private rental housing elsewhere in the conurbation.
It does not specify how much or where, but figures obtained by the M.E.N. under the Freedom of Information Act at the end of last year showed the council had already sent 1,370 families to other places – particularly neighbouring boroughs such as Salford and Trafford, but also as far away as Blackburn – over the previous two years.
But since April the town hall has seen a further 15pc rise in demand, after the new Homelessness Reduction Act – aimed at widening the group of people eligible for support – was introduced.
The report says that while the town hall has brought in several measures aimed to dealing with the effects, including hiring extra officers, that has not been enough.
“Initial indications and a review of data from the first quarter of 2018/19 show that this increase in resource is still not sufficient to deal with the increased number of presentations and, in particular, the additional administration time that needs to be spent on each new case,” it says, adding that it is now dealing with 30 cases a day.
Last winter emergency cold weather provision kicked in 11 times – covering a total of 35 days – and more people used it than the council had predicted.
“During the 11-night spell large numbers of people came indoors, which was unexpected,” the report says. As a result more cold weather shelters will be needed next year, it adds. But – in a sign of tension with the Greater Manchester mayor’s office – it suggests that Andy Burnham’s pledge of a bed for every rough sleeper every night between October and April could be tough to deliver. “This is a challenging situation,” it says of the promise.
“If officers are able to secure both locations and finances, setting a significant service up in two months will be difficult to achieve. We are working with the Greater Manchester combined authority and will be providing them with costings for the service.”
Commenting on the report, which comes ahead of a refreshed homelessness strategy for the city due to be signed off in the autumn, deputy council leader Sue Murphy said: “Homelessness remains a significant challenge, and that challenge is being made all the more difficult by national welfare changes which are causing more people to lose their homes and legislative changes which are increasing demand for our support services.
“But it’s a challenge which the city collectively is rising to – the council working closely with a whole range of partners through the Manchester Homeless Partnership – and while people sleeping rough remains a highly visible issue, we also must not lose sight of the fact that people are being supported into accommodation and to move forwards in their lives.
“There are a great many dedicated and caring people doing a lot of hard work to give this structured support.
“We’ve always been clear that the issue is so complex that it can only be successfully addressed by a range of organisations working closely together. Our new Homeless Strategy will have an increased emphasis on preventing people becoming homeless in the first place as well as ensuring that they spend as little time as possible homeless and never experience it again.”