Hundreds of Leicester homeless moved to longer-term housing

Hundreds of homeless people placed in emergency accommodation during the pandemic are now in a permanent home.

Leicester City Council said it had moved all but six of more than 900 people into housing like flats, house shares and live-in support schemes.

A report stated the council's spending on accommodation had "risen dramatically", with £508,683 spent last year, up from £187,783 in 2019.

Emergency accommodation "is very much demand led", the council said.

The extended local lockdown in the city meant greater support for rough sleepers was necessary, the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) reports.

At the height of the pandemic, the authority helped the homeless under the government's Everyone In initiative, which aimed to get people into emergency accommodation such as B&Bs.

The report by PJ White for Open Leicester, a site that pulls together facts and data from the city, also found council spending on housing is set to increase again this year, with £451,445 having been spent by the end of August.

A Leicester City Council spokesperson said: "Around half of the money was used to pay for additional temporary accommodation as part of the council's commitment to provide long-term, settled homes for people who were provided with emergency accommodation during the pandemic as part of the Everyone In initiative.

"Unlike many authorities, Leicester maintained this enhanced service [under Everyone In] for 14 months during the extended local lockdown.

"During this time, we supported over 900 people who were homeless or at risk of homelessness."

The authority said more investment had been required since spring - when the Everyone In initiative ended - in order to continue work to find people more settled accommodation.

Some of the spending was also for temporary accommodation in emergency domestic situations, the council said.

The spokesperson added: "The nature of emergency accommodation is that it is very much demand led and our budget does have a degree of flexibility to ensure that we can offer this essential service to vulnerable people at times when they need it the most."

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