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    Council spending on homelessness now double what it was five years ago: 'Throwing good money away'
    United Kingdom

    Council spending on homelessness now double what it was five years ago: ‘Throwing good money away’

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    9 Comments

    1. BestButtons on

      > Councils spent £2.3bn on temporary accommodation between April 2023 and March 2024, according to analysis from Shelter, as homelessness hit record highs with more than 150,000 children without a permanent stable home.

      > Spending, which includes money paid for hotels, private rented properties and administration fees, has increased by 29% from £1.7bn in the last year alone and has risen by 97% in the last five years.

      Combined with the increase in adult social care costs, no wonder they can’t afford to do much else anymore.

    2. Original_Success3895 on

      We need to whack up everyone’s council tax to house these poor souls then. It’s only fair right?

      You can’t just demand ‘other people’ pay more tax it has to come from all of us.

      Surely Labour supporters are happy to forego an extra bottle of wine or two a year if it solves homelessness?

      I know I am. But only if everyone else does it for fairness.

    3. jamesbeil on

      Once again, our economic malaise comes back to a lack of housebuilding. Not enough homes, not enough temporary homes, not enough places for people to shelter, **not enough building.** We are **choosing** to make ourselves poorer for the benefit of landowners and their portfolios.

    4. DrIvoPingasnik on

      Hohoho, while we are talking about homelessness I suggest you people look up how many food banks there were in UK, say 15 years ago, and how many are now.

      Sit down, this could be a shock.

    6. R3dd1tAdm1nzRCucks on

      Build a load of Japanese style accommodation. 2 room apartment blocks. They will probably save the money back in the first year.

    7. DanzaDragon on

      Government could rent out hotel rooms, give the homeless a weekly budget, phone, bicycle, amenities and you’d be way on your path to ending homelessness. They could even help the homeless with getting their lives back on track, mental health support, addiction support, community involvement, paperwork, setting up bank accounts, courses etc. Does that sound familiar ?

      This would be a colossal cost but is something that needs to be addressed. Why do we have so many homeless who have been homeless for years and why is it STILL a problem?

      Sad that it’s viewed as a cost and not an investment in bettering people’s lives and the community as a whole.

    8. jimthewanderer on

      This is because politics is almost entirely short termist nowadays.

      This could be solved if political decisions where made with a view more than five minutes down the road.

    9. waterfallregulation on

      Well we’ve had hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers turn up the last 5 years who, after being granted asylum, typically get advised by refugee charities to present themselves homeless to get a socially rented house.

      It’s not sustainable – the Government will keep raising taxes and cutting services to cope.

      This issue isn’t going away and is only going yo get worse.