In the Richest Borough of One of the World’s Richest Cities, at Least 1 in 30 People Are Homeless

A quarter of a million people are homeless and living in temporary accommodation in England, new stats from Shelter reveal.

According to the housing charity’s new report, “Homeless and Forgotten”, 253,000 people in England are living in insecure housing such as council-run temporary accommodation or hostels – the highest figure for 14 years. This number doesn’t include those sleeping rough, a statistic that can be hard to measure, meaning the total homelessness figure will be far higher. 

London saw the highest number of people living in temporary accommodation, including in some of its richest boroughs. More than two-thirds of people living in temporary housing are in the capital. Newham, a borough in east London, and Harringay, a borough in north London, saw the highest number of homeless people living in temporary accommodation. 

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, the richest local authority in the city, had the third-highest number of homeless people living in temporary housing. Around 5,500 people live in temporary accommodation – equivalent to around 1 in 30 – in a borough with the highest average incomes in the city at £64,868 per head. 

Tom Copley, deputy mayor for housing and residential development, said: “These statistics are a shocking reminder of how many Londoners, many of them with children, face the uncertainty and stress of living in temporary accommodation.

“The pandemic has exposed and widened inequalities that already existed across the capital and boroughs are coming under more pressure than ever to house those who have become homeless,” he continued. “Ministers should take these statistics as a long overdue wake up call to make the systemic changes that will stem the flow of homelessness and enable those who are stuck in temporary accommodation to move to settled homes.”

The stats give an insight into how coronavirus has accelerated the number of people living in insecure housing, and how government support measures have failed to protect the most vulnerable during this time. In the first two weeks of the pandemic, around 950,000 people in the UK applied for Universal Credit benefits, placing many more in financially insecure positions. Charities and Labour MPs warned that inadequate financial support for renters, a continued freeze of Local Housing Allowance (LHA) and a failure to ban evictions could lead to a “self-made homelessness crisis.”

Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, said: “Over a quarter of a million people – half of them children – are homeless and stuck in temporary accommodation. This should shame us all. With this deadly virus on the loose, 2020 has taught us the value of a safe home like never before. But too many are going without, because of the chronic lack of social homes.”  

Charities are calling for an increase in governmental support to avoid a worsening of the UK’s homelessness crisis. “The pandemic and the response to it has widened existing inequalities, by reducing the incomes and increasing risks disproportionately for some groups of people, through no fault of their own,” Paul Noblet, head of public affairs at youth homelessness charity Centrepoint said. "Against a backdrop of 15 percent youth unemployment and a shortage of affordable homes, it is crucial that the government retains the £20 per week Universal Credit increase and continues to enable people to claim more in benefits to cover.

"If the government withdraws additional financial support,” he continued, “then they run the risk of seeing these figures increase further with devastating consequences.”