New contract to reduce cost of temporary accommodation

LIVERPOOL City Council has negotiated a reduction in the average rate paid for temporary accommodation for homeless people, and cut the number of people placed in hotels.

They are among a raft of measures taken to drive down the cost pressures on the council’s temporary housing budget, with around 1,600 households currently in interim or temporary accommodation.

The increase in demand – mirrored across the country – is due to a number of factors including no-fault evictions, family breakdowns, rent increases and affordability issues. The council does not house asylum seekers as they are the responsibility of the Home Office.

The council has been increasing the amount of self-contained accommodation to reduce its reliance on hotels, and to cut the bill.

There are now 1,330 units of self-contained accommodation in the city and the nightly rate is now typically £57, down from £83 previously.

This has led to a reduction in the use of hotels, down to 277 rooms – and no families now spend more than six weeks in there before being moved to other accommodation. This is significant progress on April 25 when there were 83 households in B&B for more than 6 weeks.

Work is also under way on delivering 1,500 units of interim, temporary and permanent accommodation over the next 18 months, which will drastically reduce demand for ‘nightly rate’ accommodation.

In the meantime, the Cabinet is being asked to approve a new two-year contract for an accommodation booking system from 1 April, worth £40 million,  with an option to extend it for a further two years if required. This will allow the Council to facilitate bookings of interim and self-contained accommodation while procurement of the 1500 units is ongoing

Other measures to deal with the homelessness crisis include:

• Creation of an on-site support service for up to 49 single households requiring low to medium levels of support
• £7.3 million of grants available to private sector landlords to encourage them to bring 365 properties back into use
• Creation of a Housing Solutions hub to manage the volumes of homeless applications

The report will be considered at a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday 24 February.

Cabinet Member for Housing, Councillor Hetty Wood, said: “The cost-of-living crisis in recent years has led to a huge increase in people needing temporary accommodation.

“In response to that, we are taking proactive steps through a number of schemes to make sure we have enough units of accommodation to give them a roof over their head whilst they find somewhere more permanent, rather than spending months in a hotel.

“We have also negotiated reductions with landlords in the rates paid, to make sure that council taxpayers get value-for-money.

“This is all part of our wider homelessness action plan which includes bringing empty homes back into use for people who are on the housing waiting list.

“We recognise that there also needs to be an increase in the supply of affordable homes and are working with Government agencies, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and social landlords to deliver affordable rent and rent-to-buy properties.”