Nottingham homelessness report points to worsening crisis

Nottingham City Council is spending about £22,000 a day housing homeless people in bed and breakfasts and hotels as it struggles with rising demand.

A new council report warned the demand for urgent accommodation had passed crisis point and was "extremely high and increasing".

It said issues with the local and national housing market had made the situation worse.

The report will be discussed at a council meeting on Monday.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service said the report showed the authority had recently increased its temporary accommodation for homeless families from 88 to 441 units.

However, the council says all of this is now full, meaning the authority has a total of 169 homeless households in hotels and bed and breakfasts around the city.

Each room costs £134 per night and the fees for this type of accommodation must be met by the council, meaning roughly £22,000 is being spent by the authority every day.

Meanwhile 10,000 people are on the waiting list for a council house because the number of homes being purchased through right-to-buy is outstripping the number being built.

The report, due to be discussed at a Housing Scrutiny Committee meeting, states: "Whilst Nottingham is experiencing similar challenges to other major cities, there are a combination of factors locally that are amplifying the risk of homelessness and have caused difficulty in preventing and responding to it.

"The wider housing market pressures related to rent affordability and imbalance of housing supply and demand, against the background of the cost-of-living crisis, will likely exacerbate demand for homelessness services even as we work to reduce them.

"Whilst every effort will be made, numbers of homeless households, use of temporary accommodation and costs to the council are projected to continue to increase in the short-term pending the achievement of the longer-term outcomes."

The report further details the situation with rough sleeping in the city.

Cases being dealt with by the council's case workers have risen to five times the recommended limit.

The government recommends each case worker should have 30 active cases at any one time, but in Nottingham each officer has on average 165 active cases.

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