More than one in four Londoners in temporary accommodation due to homelessness are being rehoused out of their local area, with some placed in cities more than 200 miles away such as Manchester and Bradford, analysis shows.
At least 55,000 Londoners were in temporary housing outside their local areas at the end of 2020. Many are disabled or have mental health problems, or are in single-parent families with young children, and are awaiting a verdict on whether they are legally homeless or for settled accommodation to become available.
More than one in five families are placed in other regions, a figure which has doubled since 2010, when one in 10 families were asked to relocate.
“This is a perfect storm. Cuts to housing benefit and local authority budgets – as well as the failure to build the homes needed – are forcing councils to rehome families elsewhere,” said Jack Shaw, a member of the London branch of Labour Housing Group, who produced the analysis based on freedom of information requests.
“There is real concern about the wellbeing of placing families – as many as a third of them vulnerable – up to hundreds of miles from their support networks, doctors and children’s schools.”
London’s Labour Housing Group is campaigning to tackle the rise in out-of-area temporary accommodation. The group says more families are being rehoused out of their neighbourhoods than at any point since records began in 1998.
The data shows that some of the most deprived boroughs are forced to relocate the highest numbers of residents, with Newham sending 2,133 residents away in the final quarter of 2020. Shaw said this represents a “ripple effect” in which housing benefit cuts have resulted in more expensive boroughs, such as Kensington and Chelsea, having to find more places for residents, so they turn to neighbouring local authorities with cheaper housing, which pushes homeless residents in those councils further out.
To improve the situation, London’s Labour Housing Group is calling for the government to increase local housing allowance, which has failed to keep pace with the rising cost of rent after being frozen for four of the last five years, shutting struggling families out of homes.
The group recommended that the government re-examine London’s funding settlement, given that the cost of each homeless case in London is double that of other regions. This could include increasing funding for local authorities after a decade of cuts, which have eaten into budgets earmarked to address homelessness.
London’s Labour Housing Group also warned that out-of-area temporary accommodation could become a nationwide crisis, given that although 92% of out-of-area placements came from London in 2015-16, this fell to 84% in 2020-21. If this rate is sustained, within a decade one-third of all out-of-area placements would be carried out by local authorities outside London.
A government spokesperson said: “Legislation is clear that councils should try to place individuals in their own area in the first instance, or if not possible, as near as possible to the original council area.
“We’re taking decisive action, backed by £310m funding for councils, to reduce the need for temporary accommodation by preventing homelessness before it occurs. This is part of £750m this year alone to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping.”
