Responding to a report by the Salvation Army calling for
homelessness services to be properly funded in this Autumn’s
Comprehensive Spending Review, Cllr David Renard, Local
Government Association housing spokesperson, said:
“The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated the significant
challenges councils already faced supporting homeless
people.
“In the short term, to prevent any immediate rise in
homelessness, the Government should bring forward its pledge to
end ‘no fault evictions’, which would help reduce the number of
people evicted, and commit to maintaining local housing allowance
rates at the lowest third of market rents.
“In the longer term, housing must be a central part of the
recovery from coronavirus, with the Spending Review delivering a
genuine renaissance in council house-building that reduces
homelessness, gets rough sleepers off the streets for good,
supports people’s wellbeing and is climate-friendly.”
NOTES TO EDITORS
In 2018/19 alone, councils overspent on homelessness
services by a combined total of £140 million due to an increase
in demand for support, and a lack of affordable housing to
accommodate people at risk of homelessness.
The LGA represents more than 330 councils of all types
across England. We work on behalf of our members to support,
promote and improve local government.
It is councils who had led communities through the COVID-19
crisis. Our recent polling shows that 71 per
cent of residents trust their council and three quarters are
satisfied with the way their local council runs things in their
area. Our new discussion paper - Re-thinking Local - sets out
how councils must now be empowered to locally-lead the COVID-19
recovery and tackle the economic, environmental and community
challenges that we will face as a result of th e!
pandemic.
