By Gavin Mackintosh And Ben Kerrigan-
The Housing Select Committee are examining the use of government funding, following a report on research that there is a lack of affordable housing is preventing councils from helping homeless people.
Only two weeks ago, the Ministry Of Housing announced an injection of £236m to combat homelessness, but campaigners say there is a serious lack of accommodation to cater for all the homeless on the streets of Britain.
Research by Crisis revealing that Local authorities are being forced to leave people homeless with nearly four in 10 (38%) people remaining homeless after approaching their council for help since the Homelessness Reduction Act (HRA) because of lack of affordable homeless has left many alarmed given the huge amount of government funding that has been injecting into the housing sector to combat abject homelessness in the Uk.
The charity found that more people today are getting access to the housing support they need, but warned that a dwindling housing supply and rising rents means councils have little to no housing available for more and more people. The report which was based on 984 surveys and 89 in-depth interviews with people experiencing homelessness, discovered that the only support councils were able to offer some of the interviewees was information on how to rent privately.
Crisis, an organisation that has been campaigning to end homelessness or over five decades, said that several of those surveyed stated that this simply consisted of a list of potential landlords for them to contact, only to find they were unable to access these properties because their housing benefit would not cover the rent. Some members of this organisation teamed up with crisis two months ago to benefit from and share research information on homelessness with the goal of addressing this social ill.
Other research conducted by The Eye Of Media.Com reveals that several hundreds of homeless people have been put in bed and breakfast to get them off the streets, but many remain without a roof over their head once hotels become full after housing numerous homeless people.
Crisis have called on the Government to invest in housing benefit so that it covers the cheapest third of rents and commit to building 90,000 social homes each year for the next 15 years, expressing distress that across England, councils are being forced to leave the people they are trying to help on the streets or drifting from sofa to sofa – all because they cannot find somewhere to live.
Their chief executive, Jon Sparkes has described the situation as distressing, and told The Eye Of Media.Com that action needs to be taken on a ”multi dimensional level” to address the devastating problem of homelessness in the Uk. A first world country like the Uk should not have the scale of homelessness we are seeing, and though it is getting much better in certain areas, it is far from enough”.
However, the Housing Select Committee say they are investigating how government funding is being spent and will publish their report once completed. The Committee comprises members of Parliament from both the Labour and the Conservative party, with a majority from the Conservative party since they are in government.
Senior Committee member, Tony Catinella told The Eye Of Media.Com:
”We are currently investigating the issues of social and affordable housing and make specific recommendation once a report is completed. The government is obliged to respond to our report within two months of receiving to We look into various aspects of the departments work and cover a wide range of issues including the provision of rental accommodation and reasons underlying their short supply.
The government have been talking really big figures, but we got to remember that these figures are split across the whole country and part of the problem is that it is up to the councils how they split the money. Each council determines their own priorities and councils that feel social care is a pressing issue will prioritise that. There is a level of choice at local level, although their spending is audited. In some case, you have councils complaining that the government is not giving them enough money, bit on the other hand have the government saying it is individual councils not sending it as they should. We plan to publish our report before the summer recess”.
Separate ongoing research by this publication has discovered that certain organisations benefiting from government money seem to be pocketed a lot of it, but thorough inquiries are being made to give them an opportunity to justify their spending of government cash. In some cases, changes are being made where pressure has been applied for funds to be spent more on what they are intended for.
This article was written by and contributed to by both authors.