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Almost 90% of £1.1bn spent on temporary accommodation went to private companies
A total of 86p of every £1 spent on temporary accommodation by councils in 2018/19 went to private landlords and letting agents, a joint investigation between charity Shelter and the BBC’s Panorama has revealed.
According to analysis of government figures, English councils paid £939m in temporary accommodation costs to private accommodation providers in 2018/19, up 48% from the £490m spent in 2013/14.
Meanwhile, a series of Freedom of Information requests sent by the homeless charity revealed that 18 of the top 25 temporary accommodation providers which received the most public money last year were private letting agents.
Of these private providers, Finefair Consultancy Ltd, which received £16.4 m from nine local authorities, received the highest amount of money in 2018/19.
In addition to private companies, multiple housing associations including A2Dominion (£6.5m), Notting Hill Genesis (5.3m) and Network Homes (£4.4m) were included on the list.
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Local Space, a housing association set up by Newham Council, received £31.9m in 2018/19, making it the single provider that received the most money from councils during that period.
Newham has one of the largest homeless populations in the country; last year government data revealed that one in every 24 people in the borough is homeless.
Last week, research by the Local Government Association revealed that seven in 10 councils in England are overspending on their homelessness budgets as the cost of placing families in temporary B&B accommodation rose by more than a fifth in the past year alone.
Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, said: “When successive governments cut funding for social housing, they fired the starting gun on the housing emergency we see today.
“Had the supply of social homes not dried up, fewer people would be homeless and we would not be wasting over a billion pounds a year on temporary accommodation.
“It is sickening that most of this tax-payer money ends up in the pockets of private landlords and letting agents.
“As we see in our services, this accommodation is often in dire condition and is horribly unstable by nature. But with nothing else available, hamstrung councils have got to hand over the cash to try and keep people off the streets.”
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: “Since 2010 we have delivered over 464,000 new affordable homes, including 141,000 social homes – with the number on the social housing waiting list decreasing by 37% since 2012.
“Last year we delivered more homes than any year in the last 30 years and will deliver a million more this parliament. We have also abolished the borrowing cap so councils can build more social homes, giving families the chance to find somewhere safe and secure.”
