Nearly 50 homeless Liverpool families with children living in B&Bs for over six weeks

Scores of homeless families with children in Liverpool have been living in bed & breakfast accommodation for over six weeks.

Families deemed to be homeless and in need of accommodation from local authorities can find themselves temporarily housed in B&Bs. If that happens, government targets say it should be for no more than six weeks.

Despite this though, in the last three months of 2023, a total of 46 families with children in Liverpool had been housed in B&Bs for over six weeks, according to the latest figures from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.

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That’s down marginally from 47 families between July and September, but up from just 18 families in the last three months of 2022 and just one family at the end of 2019.

The number of households living in B&Bs in Liverpool has been on the rise under the Tory government, but particularly since the pandemic.

In the 2010/11 financial year, there were no households living in B&Bs for any length of time, not just for longer than six weeks. That rose to nine in 2015/16, 17 in 2016/17, and down to nine again in 2017/18.

From 2019, figures started to be reported quarterly (three month periods). There were 19 households living in B&Bs in Liverpool between October and December of 2019.

That rose to 81 by the end of 2020 and to 196 in the last three months of 2022.

Last winter, Liverpool City Council declared a housing and homelessness emergency as it faced an unprecedented situation in terms of people losing their homes and needing emergency accommodation.

The council's leader, Cllr Liam Robinson, revealed that the cost of providing temporary accommodation had risen from £250,000 to an enormous £19m.

A perfect storm of rising rents, soaring mortgage payments and a spike in Section 21 evictions has led to the particularly acute problem in the city, where it was recently revealed there was a total of 900 homeless people living in temporary accomodation.

The situation across the country is similarly bleak.

In the last three months of 2023, a total of 2,960 families with children had been housed in B&Bs for over six weeks across England.
That’s an increase of 84% compared to the same time last year, when there were 1,610 such families.

However, it’s a 1,750% increase compared to when the Tories came to power. Back in May 2010, just 160 families with children found themselves living in a B&B for over six weeks, almost 19 times fewer than in the most recent quarter.

Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, said: “The government cannot stand idly by while a generation of children have their lives blighted by homelessness.

“Decades of failure to build enough genuinely affordable social homes has left families struggling to cobble together extortionate sums every month to keep a roof over their heads. Those who can’t afford private rents are being thrown into homelessness and then left for months and even years in damaging temporary accommodation because there is nowhere else.

“With a General Election approaching, it’s time for all politicians to show voters they are serious about ending the housing emergency. To dramatically reduce homelessness, we need every party to commit to building 90,000 social homes a year for ten years, and an overhaul of the Renters (Reform) Bill so that it delivers genuine safety and security for private renters.”

A Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities spokesperson said: “We want everyone to have a safe place to call home, which is why we’re giving councils £1.2 billion so that they can give financial support to those who need it, helping them to find a new home and move out of temporary accommodation. At the same time, we’ve boosted the local housing allowance, giving the 1.6 million private renters in receipt of housing benefit or universal credit an additional £800 to help towards rental costs.

“The government is providing total support of £104 billion over 2022-2025 – an average of £3,700 per UK household - to help households with the high cost of living.”

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