Andrew Dismore

Responding to this week’s report from Shelter which found that more than 300,000 people in Britain are homeless, with Barnet ranked 17 out of the worst 20 boroughs in England, Labour London Assembly Member, Andrew Dismore AM, said:

“Recently the National Audit Office warned that government welfare policies are directly contributing to the homelessness crisis. These appalling figures show that the Government has wilfully turned its back on those who’ve had the misfortune to find themselves homeless.

“With Barnet needing 3,134 new homes a year to meet local demand, the consequences of the abject failure of Conservative run Barnet Council, who are always willing to give planning permission for high cost homes but underperform on affordable homes, are obvious.

“Right now we’ve got a Prime Minister who has prioritised pumping £10 billion into Help to Buy and inflating house prices in the process, rather than committing the funds to build the hundreds of thousands of needed homes for social rent.

“The Mayor has pledged £9 million a year to tackle rough sleeping, but this must be matched by determined action from the Conservatives in Barnet and in central Government to tackle the chronic shortage of affordable housing and to abandon their punitive welfare cuts and caps.

“We know so much about the causes of homelessness, but if we don’t start applying the solutions the picture in places like Barnet is only going to become even more bleak.”

ENDS

Notes

• In September, a report from the National Audit Office criticised the government’s ‘light touch’ on dealing with homeslessness;
• Research from Shelter shows that 307,000 people are homeless in Britain today (Shelter’s review combined official rough-sleeping, temporary accommodation, and social services figures);
• Research from Shelter, in the table below, sets out the top 20 areas with the highest rates of recorded as homelessness. Only two boroughs are outside London:

Table 1: Top 50 areas with highest rates of recorded as homelessness (comprises temp. accommodation and rough sleeping figures only)

Local Authority	Region	Number of people living in TA	Number of people rough sleeping	Total homeless people	Total people	1 in x people are homeless	National Rank
Newham	London	13,566	41	13,607	340,978	25	1
Haringey	London	9,688	29	9,717	278,451	29	2
Westminster	London	7,794	260	8,054	247,614	31	3
Enfield	London	10,051	6	10,057	331,395	33	4
Kens & Chels	London	4,387	14	4,401	156,726	36	5
Waltham Forest	London	7,587	47	7,634	275,843	36	6
Brent	London	8,881	24	8,905	328,254	37	7
Barking & Dag	London	5,573	5	5,578	206,460	37	8
Tower Hamlets	London	7,417	11	7,428	304,854	41	9
Hackney	London	6,150	17	6,167	273,526	44	10
Redbridge	London	6,197	60	6,257	299,249	48	11
Lewisham	London	6,198	16	6,214	301,867	49	12
Hamm & Fulham	London	3,515	6	3,521	179,654	51	13
Luton	East of England	4,113	76	4,189	216,791	52	14
Ealing	London	6,529	27	6,556	343,196	52	15
Croydon	London	7,007	68	7,075	382,304	54	16
Barnet	London	7,011	22	7,033	386,083	55	17
Lambeth	London	5,656	17	5,673	327,910	58	18
Southwark	London	4,955	32	4,987	313,223	63	19
Brighton & Hove	South East	4,074	144	4,218	289,229	69	20
Compiled from official statistics on temporary accommodation (as at Q2 2017) and rough sleeping (Autumn 2016). TA figures adjusted to estimate total number of people (adults and children), rather than households.

 

• Analysis from City Hall shows that Barnet needs 3,134 new homes each year to meet local need. The data can be found here;
• Andrew Dismore AM is the London Assembly Member for Barnet and Camden