East London Council looking to buy flats in neighbouring borough for homeless families
Newham Council is looking to buy 63 flats in a neighbouring borough which will be used to house young care leavers and homeless families staying in temporary accommation. The council hopes the flats, which are located in a new purpose-built residential development on Oxlow Lane in Dagenham, will help to reduce demand pressures and temporary accommodation costs.
According to a cabinet report, 43 of these flats will be for care leavers who are ready to live independently but are unable to access social housing or private rented housing. Newham currently has 130 care leavers aged between 21 and 25 who need to be housed, and the council is expected to overspend its budget for care leaver accommodation for 2024/25 by £800,000.
In May 2024, the council recognised the care experience as a protected characteristic and agreed to give more support to those in care or leaving care by reviewing all of its policies to prevent further stigma or discrimination which they often face. The remaining 20 flats will be lived in by homeless families who are currently staying in temporary accommodation.
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The council is expected to lease the properties to a third party, and the one-bed flats will be rented out to care leavers at a one-bed local housing allowance rate. For the families who are moving out of temporary accommodation, the council is looking to arrange a private rented sector offer so the council can discharge its homelessness duty to the families.
Newham has the highest number of households in temporary accommodation in the country, with more than 6,000 families in temporary accommodation. More than 3,000 of these families are staying in nightly-booked properties, which the council says is the most expensive and insecure form of accommodation.
The cabinet report noted: "The council has taken effective measures to manage down the number of households requiring temporary accommodation, particularly those in nightly booked. However, it will be challenging to continue to reduce these numbers further in the coming year given increasing demand. A major factor in the increase in the number of households in temporary accommodation is due to local residents being priced out of the private rented sector in recent years."
It went on to state: "A number of these households are in work but are not able to afford to pay market rents in the borough as well as all other household bills but, equally, are unlikely to receive an offer on a social rented home in the medium term due to the large housing waiting list." The plans, which have been recommended for approval, will be discussed at a cabinet meeting next week (October 1).
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