YOUNG people seeking homelessness support are being turned away by councils across England due to a funding shortfall of over £300 million.
According to an analysis by homeless charity Centrepoint, some councils “do not have the means” to fulfil their legal duties in assessing someone who approaches them for help.
The research suggests that local authorities would need a 15 per cent increase in government funding — around £332m — to meet the needs of people aged 16-24 who approach them for support.
It estimated that, between April 2022 and March 2023, more than a third of the 119,300 young people in England who approached their councils for support were not assessed.
Newham in east London could need as much as £32 million to meet the needs of the young people in the borough and there is an estimated shortfall of over £10m in Liverpool, Cornwall and the London boroughs of Ealing and Hammersmith and Fulham.
Centrepoint head of policy, research and campaigns Alicia Walker said: “Councils have a legal duty to assess anyone who presents as homeless, but we are deeply concerned that they do not have the means to carry out these duties.
“It’s not good enough that so many young people are not getting the chance of that assessment, let alone accessing support.
“We can’t just blame councils for this. It’s clear they don’t have the resources to meet increasing demand for homelessness services and the government needs to address this crisis.”
Local Government Association housing spokesperson Darren Rodwell said: “Currently, councils are spending £1.74 billion on supporting households living in temporary accommodation, with this spend predicted to increase by a further 19.9 per cent in 2023-24.
“Discrepancies between the temporary accommodation subsidy and the cost of temporary accommodation means that councils are increasingly using more of the homelessness prevention grant and their general fund to pay for temporary accommodation.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said it was “spending £1.2bn over three years to give councils the funding they need to prevent homelessness.”
