Third round of Local Authority Housing Fund opens with £450m to combat homelessness

The LAHF was launched in December 2022, when £500m was allocated to local authorities to obtain housing for refugees from Ukraine and Afghanistan.

In June 2023, the second round of the fund provided a further £250m to address wider homelessness and house people on Afghan resettlement schemes.

The government said funding for the third round has initially been prioritised for areas facing “the highest housing pressures”, with 203 councils receiving an initial funding allocation.

Chief executives of eligible local authorities have been contacted to confirm their funding amount and the minimum number of units they are being asked to deliver with this funding.

Councils that have not received an allocation can also express their interest in being considered for any unclaimed funds.

Local authorities will be asked to deliver a target number of homes for refugees and a target number for general needs temporary accommodation. An “uplifted grant rate” of 10% will be provided for councils that are able to deliver new homes with their funding.

The funding can be used for increasing the number of affordable homes in house builder-led schemes due to complete in 2024-25 or 2025-26, bringing empty properties back into use, or by “flipping” forthcoming shared ownership completions and buying existing homes on the open market.

To date, around 24,600 people have arrived in the UK from Afghanistan via resettlement schemes. As of September 2023, 16,413 people had moved into a home, while a further 409 people had been matched to a home and were waiting to move in.

Payment of the first tranche of funding will take place in May or June, depending on when agreements with councils are reached.

In an interview with Inside Housing earlier this week, housing secretary Michael Gove said he hoped the LAHF would help to address homelessness. “We do have a significant problem,” he said. “Homelessness is not [just] about housing, but you can’t solve homelessness without resolving our big housing problems.”