Homelessness in Wales rises 57%

The Welsh Government introduced a pioneering homelessness prevention programme under the Housing Act (Wales) 2014 which came into effect in April 2015, requiring all councils in Wales to help anyone threatened with homelessness within 56 days.

Similar legislation was signed into law by the UK government in May, with the new duties expected to come into force next April.

Funding of £7.8m has been made available to Welsh councils to carry out their prevention duties in 2017/18.

A spokesperson for the Chartered Institute of Housing Cymru welcomed the rise in households helped by councils, but said the housing sector’s ability to address homelessness is being “overshadowed by the impact of welfare reform”.

“Some of our members have reported concerns that the approach requires a considerable amount of time from local authority homelessness teams to be successful,” the statement said.

“With an increasing case load as demonstrated in today’s release, where an increase of 2,082 households were assessed as threatened with homelessness compared to 2015/16, they say there is a significant challenge in continuing the improvement.”

The figures also show that 4,500 households were relieved of homelessness and helped into secure accommodation for at least six months in 2016/17 – a significant improvement on the 3,108 relieved the previous year but again a smaller proportion of the total, down from 45% to 41%.

On 31 March 2017, 2,013 households were in temporary accommodation in Wales and 189 were in bed and breakfasts.