Housing crisis seeing more homeless families relocated out of area
Homeless families are increasingly being housed hundreds of miles away from their local community heightening safeguarding risks, MPs and children's services directors in England warn.
Lack of affordable housing, particularly in London where most of the families are being relocated from, is driving the trend, they say.
A cross-party group of Westminster MPs has raised concern in a new report, highlighting the “unsustainable” pressure the homelessness "crisis” is putting on local authorities.
The Public Accounts Committee's Tackling Homelessness report highlights a 42 per cent increase in families placed out of area over the last five years. It said: “The report raises deep concerns around the number of families being housed outside their local area. This has risen to 39,000, a practice which alarmingly seems to be becoming increasingly common.”
The committee said out of area placements can “cause disruption, especially to children, including challenges for their education and social isolation affecting their health and support needs".
It also highlighted the “equally alarming” 6,000 families with children living in B&Bs and called for a government strategy in England focused on preventing homelessness.
Committee chair Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP said: “My committee is deeply concerned by the number of people currently being housed in sub-standard, overpriced and at times, wholly inappropriate accommodation, sometimes a long way from their previous home.
“A lack of affordable housing, a focus on short-term solutions and no clear strategy to tackle this issue have left us with thousands of families in deeply troubling circumstances. Worryingly there seems to be no desire to move away from an unsatisfactory short-term system, leaving local authorities attempting to save a sinking ship with a little more than a leaky bucket.”
Concern over homeless families placed out of area was also raised by the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) in its latest Safeguarding Pressures report.
The report said child safeguarding risks resulting from the trend have previously been highlighted by local authorities in England but “never to the scale and extent seen now”.
The report, based on surveys and interviews between June and September last year, also warned of the strain on services in host areas which are typically located in the north of England.
One authority from the north-east said: “We are seeing an increasing influx of families rehoused into cheaper accommodation, often from London boroughs… Moving families 300 miles away from their support networks is going to escalate risk.”
It noted they were also more likely to be in “very cheap rental property” where the proportion of children escalating into crisis and coming into care “is off the scale higher” than families in more established social housing.
Government figures show a record 151,630 homeless children were in temporary accommodation between January and March last year – 15 per cent higher than the previous year.
A third of families were accommodated outside their locality. Nearly eight out of ten (26,380) were from London authorities, with Black and minority ethnic families disproportionately represented.
Three out of ten respondents to the ADCS survey noticed “increased safeguarding activity” resulting from families moving to a new area.
These were families “with no previous contact with statutory services", highlighting the additional stress of being rehoused far from familiar neighbourhoods and networks.
Separate data from the National Child Mortality Database has revealed that there were at least 74 deaths of children in temporary accommodation in England over the last five years, 58 of whom were under the age of one.
The ADCS called for social workers to receive more training in such areas so they can confidently work with people from different cultures who may not have English as their first language.
Responding to the latest Public Accounts Committee report, Cllr Adam Hug, housing spokesperson for the Local Government Association, said: “Homelessness is one of the biggest and most urgent pressures facing local government.
“As this report highlights, as more and more people turn to their council for support and councils have little choice but to resort to costly temporary accommodation, local authorities are spending less on funding homelessness prevention.”
The government said it is allocating £1 billion to councils to provide stable housing. Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner added: "We will fix the current system that has left far too many families trapped in temporary accommodation with no end in sight and end homelessness for good by tackling the root causes and driving up housing standards."