Average homeless family in Coventry costing £14k a year in accommodation

CITY COUNCIL IS TRYING TO REDUCE COSTS

COVENTRY taxpayers are paying an average of £14,000-a-year to place a single homeless family into temporary accommodation, a new report reveals.

Overall costs could be higher but some of that is met by a housing benefit subsidy grant, a report on the council’s statutory homelessness duties said.

Head of housing Jim Crawshaw has admitted it is a “significant” cost to the authority but reassured councillors steps are being taken to reduce this.

The costs further expose the huge homelessness pressures facing the council.

Only last month, councillors were told the authority is forecast to chalk up a £2.8m overspend in housing and homelessness this year.

It recorded a similar overspend on its £5.9m housing and homelessness budget last year despite extra money being pumped in.

Expensive temporary accommodation such as hotels and B&Bs make up the bulk of the council’s housing expenditure, costing a hefty £5.5million in 2018/19 alone.

New measures were agreed this week which is hoped to encourage more people into cheaper, “more suitable”, permanent private rented accommodation, rather than temporary measures.

Details were signed off at a meeting on Monday, February 10.

Council spends £22k on B&B accommodation for one homeless claimant at the Allesley Hotel Mr Crawshaw said: “Temporary accommodation does cost us a significant amount of money and we are working on a range of initiatives around reducing the cost.

“One of the key ways of reducing the cost is moving people out of temporary accommodation into alternative more permanent accommodation, whether that’s through a housing association but also the private rented.

“At the moment households will be living in private rented but it will be temporary accommodation.

“They could be there for a number of months so if we can get them something that has more stability, which is that private rented sector offer, then that would be perfect.”

The changes are part of updates to the council’s ‘discharge into private rented sector’ policy, which allows the authority to offer homeless households accommodation in the private rented sector without the consent of the applicant, providing a tenancy is offered for at least 12 months and the property is suitable. This enables the council to fulfil its homelessness duty.

The council implemented the policy in 2013 has been following outdated government legislation for the past two years as it has not taken into account 2018 changes from the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017.

Key changes include a requirement to provide more extensive housing advice, duties to ‘prevent’ or ‘relieve’ homelessness, and new assessments on the individual circumstances of applicants.

Other measures to reduce costs include the lease of tower block Caradoc Hall to provide a cheaper alternative to temporary accommodation, as well as a planned temporary accommodation charging policy to cover costs of utilities and council tax.

One of the key ways of reducing the cost is moving people out of temporary accommodation into alternative more permanent accommodation