Councils in England facing soaring homelessness costs are urging the government to foot more of the bill, the BBC can reveal. Local authorities which house people in temporary accommodation generally pay the up-front costs and claim the cash back from central government. But the cross-party Local Government Association (LGA), which represents councils across England, says a 2011 decision to freeze the amount they can claim back has cost them almost £740m in the last five years. The LGA says that money would otherwise have been spent on areas such as adult social care, children’s services and preventing homelessness. It wants the Labour government to update the system to reflect 2024 costs. The increasing number of people needing to be housed in temporary accommodation, combined with the rise in costs per person, has resulted in a funding gap of £737.3m over the last five years. A record 123,100 households were in temporary accommodation at the end of June, a 16% rise on last year.
Source link
