Crackdown on B&B use for families

With often cramped conditions, unsanitary bathrooms and damp rooms, bed and breakfast accommodation is regarded as unsuitable for children. But despite efforts to reduce its use, more families are being forced into B&Bs.

Statistics released this month show that 4,500 households were in B&B accommodation on 31 March this year, up 14 per cent on the same time last year. To make matters worse, more families are staying in B&Bs for longer than the government’s six-week limit.

Government rhetoric on the problem has been tough. Housing minister Grant Shapps chastised local authorities in April 2012 when it emerged that the number of families living in B&Bs for more than six weeks had jumped from 150 at the end of December 2010 to 450 in December 2011.

But the numbers have continued to rise. On 31 December 2012, there were 751 families who had been in bed and breakfast accommodation for more than six weeks.

In response, the Department for Communities and Local Govern­ment has announced a £1.8m fund to help councils “develop innovative and sustainable solutions” and invited the 15 authorities with the greatest number of families in B&Bs for more than six weeks to bid for the money.

But will it make any difference?

Kate Webb, senior policy officer at Shelter, says the situation is a result of factors largely outside the control of local authorities – a “double whammy” of welfare cuts and a lack of affordable housing.

She says increasing numbers of low-income families are presenting to local authorities as homeless because they cannot afford to cover the cost of soaring private rents. And she fears the situation will get worse when the overall benefit cap is rolled out nationally from next month. The cap will see housing benefit reduced so that the total amount of benefits recipients get does not exceed £500 a week.

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