Households in temporary accommodation exceed 100,000 for first time in nearly 20 years

The Renters’ Reform Bill was due to be published this week, but is understood to have been postponed over a procedural issue. 

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities told Inside Housing it does not yet have a date set for the publication of the bill. 

Previous research by Inside Housing, published in January, found that almost 53,000 households were threatened with homelessness due to a Section 21 eviction notice between April 2019 and June 2022.

Homelessness charity Shelter has urged the government to bring forward the legislation “as soon as possible” and to make sure it is “as strong as possible, with every loophole closed, so that no renter can be unfairly evicted”.  

Elsewhere, the government data revealed that the number of households presenting as homeless has increased by 8.1%

It showed that 37,430 households were initially assessed as homeless and therefore owed a relief duty, up 8.1% from the same quarter last year. 

Relief duty is when a household is already homeless and the local authority has a duty to help them secure accommodation for at least six months. 

Households in with children owed a relief duty increased 14.1% from the same quarter last year to 9,820 households. 

In the last quarter of 2022, 72,550 households were assessed as homeless or threatened with homelessness and owed a statutory duty, up 4.7% from October to December 2021.

Overall in 2022, more than 290,300 households faced homelessness in 2022 in England – a rise of 6% compared with the year before. 

The data showed that between October and December, there were 3,790 more households with children living in TA compared to the same period the previous year. 

Households with children in TA increased by 6.6% to 62,410, and single households increased by 3% to 38,890. 

Compared with the previous quarter, the number of households in temporary accommodation increased by 2.5%.

An investigation by Inside Housing at the end of last year revealed that a city’s worth of under-fives are homeless and living in TA. 

According to the statistics, 5,120 households were threatened with homelessness via a Section 21 notice, down 5.5% from the same quarter last year. The figure is also down from the previous quarter. 

Between July and September 2022, the number of households threatened with homelessness via no-fault evictions increased by 34.4% to 6,170 compared with the same period the year before. 

But overall, those threatened with no-fault evictions increased to 23,630 in 2022 from 15,590 in 2021.

Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, said: “The cost of living crisis coupled with paying through the nose for insecurity and disrepair in the private rented sector where competition for rentals is fierce means that there are little to no options for tenants who are forced out of their homes. 

“Renters have been promised these reforms for four long years, they can’t wait any longer. The government must immediately bring forward the long-promised Renters’ Reform Bill, which will scrap Section 21 no-fault evictions for good.”  

Matt Downie, chief executive of Crisis, said the homelessness system is “on its knees”. 

He added: “Years of inaction and failure has brought us to this point. We’re supporting people trapped in temporary accommodation who are living in one room with their children, often without facilities to cook their own meals or do their washing, causing real damage to their physical and mental health.  

“The need for government to urgently increase the number of good-quality, affordable homes could not be more desperate. 

“This must be delivered alongside comprehensive changes to the private rental sector, otherwise we will continue to see thousands forced out of their homes and trapped in unsuitable temporary accommodation.”

Liberal democrat housing spokesperson Helen Morgan said the “shameful failure of the Conservatives” to ban no-fault evictions is “directly responsible for this shocking increase in homelessness”.

“This ban needs to be brought in urgently before more families lose their home through no fault of their own,” the MP said.