Homeless ‘crisis’ as B&Bs open to guests

CORNWALL is facing an accommodation “crisis” after it was revealed that about 130 homeless people have been asked to move out of B&Bs and hotels to make way for paying customers.

The promise of a busy summer season has meant that hotel and B&B owners who have provided temporary and emergency accommodation for homeless people and families want to return to welcoming paying guests.

Olly Monk, Cornwall Council’s cabinet member for housing, said the situation was a “crisis” and the council needed to come up with solutions as quickly as possible.

He said: “Last week about 130 people left temporary and emergency accommodation that the council provides at hotel chains and B&Bs for the reason that people wanted to get back to the business of providing hotel accommodation for regular, paying guests. The good weather, the bank holiday and the end of lockdown on June 21, hopefully, has meant those businesses want to get back on a regular footing of providing regular accommodation.”

The Conservative councillor for Newquay Trenance said the council didn’t have any long-term contracts in place with hoteliers so the businesses had the flexibility to terminate the contracts.

“Cornwall Housing managed to rehouse pretty much all of them,” added the councillor. “A lot of them moved in with family or friends, some were rehoused in Plymouth. A very small number of people, discretionary claimants, who were housed in Cornwall during Covid who couldn’t get back to where they came from during the pandemic have been offered accommodation elsewhere.”

Mr Monk said he had not heard any reports of anyone being made homeless as a result of the move.

“This is a crisis and we need to come up with some innovative solutions to it very quickly,” he stressed. “Moving forward, the people we are homing in temporary and emergency accommodation are going to come under more pressure as the holiday season progresses and as landlords cash in on the AirB&B side of things. Long-term our administration is looking at providing more council housing and open market rented properties for the people of Cornwall. But right now we’ve got a problem with a lot of people in temporary accommodation that we need to house.”