Совет Басилдона предупредил о перерасходе бюджета на 2,7 млн фунтов из-за роста бездомности

BASILDON Council faces a £2.7 million overspend, driven mainly by a “sharp rise” in homelessness described as one of its “biggest” challenges. A report for next Tuesday’s council finance meeting says temporary accommodation accounts for £2.1 million of the housing budget overspend. It warns that rising private rents, frozen housing benefit rates and a shortage of affordable homes are driving more people to seek help. Andy Barnes, Conservative leader of Basildon Council, said homelessness was one of the housing team’s “biggest” challenges. He said it was second only to “serious failings” in social housing services, which led to the council receiving a C4 judgement from the regulator of Social Housing, the worst possible grade. Mr Barnes said: “We have adopted a multi-pronged approach to what is probably the biggest priority the housing team have outside the C4 rating.” “The first approach is to look to purchase more property suitable to use as temporary accommodation.” “The second and most important is to deal with growing demand, we are working to make sure people who come to us for temporary accommodation definitely qualify against the specific criteria.” The council is also working to move people out of temporary accommodation faster, into council homes or private housing, he said. Mr Barnes said: “We have had an issue where people have been left in temporary accommodation for far too long which negatively impacts their lives and increases costs for the council.” More than 800 homeless households are currently being housed by Basildon Council, a council spokesperson said. Most cannot leave temporary housing because affordable accommodation is unavailable. Private rents exceed local housing allowance rates, leaving many low-income households unable to make up the difference. A shortage of social housing is also keeping people in temporary accommodation longer and driving up council costs. A Basildon Council spokesperson said: “Last year we launched an initiative to help people remain in the family home, preventing homelessness for more than 70 households.” "We are about to relaunch our personal budgets programme, which has proved extremely successful in preventing and relieving homelessness through flexible funding pots. "We have tackled low-level housing-related debt to help people access the Homeseekers Register. "We are recruiting additional officers across the services, to transition the service to be more prevention focussed, helping people earlier in the process. "We have relaunched our landlord forum, working with local private landlords to understand common issues and barriers to accessing properties.” In 2023, Basildon was among council leaders urging the Chancellor to raise local housing allowances and provide £300 million in discretionary housing payments.