Homelessness minister promises to end use of B&Bs as emergency housing | Homelessness

The homelessness minister has vowed to end the use of bed and breakfasts as emergency housing, even as new figures show the country’s homelessness problem has worsened since Labor came to government.

Alison McGovern said she would view it as a personal failure that people were still being put into hostels by the end of parliament as she launched the government’s three-year homelessness strategy.

But despite promises to reduce the use of temporary accommodation and halve the number of people in distress, data from Shelter shows homelessness rose by 8 per cent last year.

McGovern told the Guardian: “We want to end the use of hostels except in genuine emergencies. We want to end the use of hostels by the end of Parliament.”

“People will need access to better temporary accommodation, increased social housing, etc. But I think we can do that. If we fail to do that, no one will judge me as harshly as I judge myself.”

He said Shelter’s latest figures showing more than 380,000 people are now homeless in England, with a record 350,000 people in temporary accommodation, showed the scale of the challenge facing the government.

“We’ve seen people’s incomes being constrained, costs rising, and then austerity in town halls over the last fifteen years,” he said. “When the force and momentum of these three big challenges is this great, it will take more than a year for a Labor government to turn this around – but we will do it.”

Even as he launched the strategy, his government came under fire from campaigners and Manchester’s Labor mayor Andy Burnham for freezing housing benefit until at least 2026.

Burnham told ITV News on Wednesday: “The Westminster world, because sometimes they are tough on benefits. [says]: ‘Let’s freeze local housing benefit.’

“All this means is that families living in private rented accommodation see a widening gap between the rent they have to pay and the level of support they receive from the system, and this gap grows to the point of being made homeless and having to turn to the council.”

Sarah Elliott, chief executive of Shelter, said: “Failure to resolve local housing allowance rates will condemn thousands of people to another terrible winter without a safe home. Even more people will find it impossible to avoid or escape homelessness in the coming months unless the government throws them a lifeline.”

But McGovern hit back: “The root of this problem is not housing allowance, but the private rented sector.

“If we want to move forward on this, we have to get to the root cause of this, and that means building more homes and ensuring people earn sustainable incomes.”

As part of the Government’s homelessness strategy, ministers have pledged hundreds of millions of pounds to various schemes to improve temporary accommodation, including a £124 million fund for more supported housing for people with complex needs.

The cornerstone of the strategy is a proposed “duty to cooperate” law that would force public institutions to work together to ensure people are not thrown out of prison or hospital onto the streets.

Clear targets will be set for the first time, including halving the number of people who become homeless on their first night out of prison and ensuring that no eligible person is discharged onto the street after a stay in hospital.

But ministers refused to increase housing benefit; Campaigners say this is needed to reduce homelessness in the short term.

Jasmine Basran, head of policy and campaigns at the crisis charity, said her research showed homelessness among people discharged from hospitals, prisons and other institutions rose by 22 per cent last year.

“We’re seeing people who were in the hospital and still had medical needs, but were discharged and hit the streets and then had to deal with physical and mental health conditions that they couldn’t cope with, as well as the dangers of trauma and rough sleeping,” he said.

“This is not a place to get better. It just means we’re seeing people going back to the emergency room because they can’t get the care they need. And if you’re homeless after you get out of prison, you’re much more likely to reoffend. So that approach is absolutely right.”

David Robinson, assistant director of operations at Riverside housing association, said: “This is something we see all the time – many of the people we help have previously been in prison, hospital or social care and have left the system with nowhere to go.

“But the devil is in the details, and we need to know who will have to do it, what the timeline is, and what resources will be there to support them.”