The Temporary Accommodation Crisis

The most repeated cause of the current financial crisis, according to the mayor, is the cost of housing people in temporary accommodation. This year, they anticipate overspending by some £22m. There are additional overspends in children’s and adult services, but temporary housing is cited as the major problem.

Newham Council are currently paying £61m pa to house 6350 families in temporary accommodation.

In the neighbouring boroughs the situation is very different.

For reasons that are unclear, Newham has more than double the number of homeless families in temporary accommodation of any neighbouring borough, (and roughly five times more than Waltham Forest and Barking and Dagenham).

We are bound to ask why?

A possible answer lies in the acceptance policies of the different boroughs. We would hazard a guess that Newham is operating a much more liberal policy regarding who is taken onto the list.

What is it about people in Newham that is so markedly different from those in Tower Hamlets or Redbridge, or Hackney?

We don’t know, but it is one of those questions that we would expect a reasonably thoughtful councillor to ask, and if Labour councillors don’t, perhaps one of the opposition members might.

Unless there is a very good reason, it is difficult to justify spending £61m, when neighbouring boroughs would spend between £15m and £30m.

It seems that there is a (hidden) policy agenda at work, or maybe, they just can’t say ‘no’.

In the absence of better information, it seems that the mayor and her housing chief, Cllr Mohammed, have their own agenda for packing people into temporary accommodation. But what that is, remains a mystery.

If they would like to tell us, we’ll guarantee to report it.