“Homelessness is everyone’s business, and councils need the help of health, employment, and housing partners to deliver ambitions to end it."
Responding to new analysis by Crisis forecasting a rise in rough sleeping over the next three years, Cllr Judith Blake, Housing spokesperson at the Local Government Association, said:
“Councils want to end homelessness. As we have warned, councils are housing the equivalent of an extra secondary school’s worth of homeless children every month. For families, rising homelessness is tragic. For councils housing homeless people, it is unsustainable.
“Homelessness is everyone’s business, and councils need the help of health, employment, and housing partners to deliver ambitions to end it. In particular, councils need to be able to adapt the implementation of some welfare reforms to ensure there are housing options for people on low incomes.
“There is no substitute for a renaissance in council house building if we’re to truly address the rising homelessness we face as a nation. For that to happen, government needs to allow councils to borrow to invest in genuinely affordable housing, and to keep all of their receipts from Right to Buy sales, so that money can be reinvested into delivering genuinely affordable homes.”