Newham Council, in London, was found to need as much as £32mn, with Liverpool, Hammersmith and Fulham, Cornwall, London boroughs of Ealing and Bexley needing in excess of £10mn, according to research published by youth homelessness charity Centrepoint.
Rising costs to meet obligations under the Homelessness Reduction Act (HRA) were found to be a key factor behind the shortfall, despite the government investing £2.4bn to tackle homelessness between 2022 and 2025.
Main duty costs came to an average of £23,629 per case, with 88% of this taken up by temporary accommodation. Costs were highest in London, with main duty costs in Kensington and Chelsea exceeding over four times the national average per case.
According to homelessness charity Shelter, "the main housing duty is a duty to provide temporary accommodation until such time as the duty is ended, either by an offer of settled accommodation or for another specified reason".
Local authorities would need a 15% increase in spending on youth homelessness from central government. The overall figure ranges from a £260mn increase in the best-case scenario where homelessness is easily prevented to £424mn in a tougher situation.
The research, carried out by WPI Economics, also found that that in 2021/22, only 68% of the 112,500 young people who reached out for help were assessed by their councils.
Centrepoint found that this declined to just 65% of 119,300 young people in 2022/23.
Alicia Walker, head of policy, research and campaigns at Centrepoint 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.
“The government have put their money where their mouth is when it comes to investing in some services but it's clear that more – including a cross-departmental strategy and inflation-proof spending commitments – is needed just to keep on top of current demand, never mind address the increasing number of people without a home.”
The research comes as dozens of youth organisations are backing a campaign for ministers to develop a plan to prevent homelessness for 136,000 young people in the UK.
