By Joe Locker, Local Democracy Reporter
Around 170 homeless Nottingham people and families are now staying in emergency accommodation – because all other types of housing support are completely full.
The level of demand for urgent accommodation in Nottingham has passed crisis point and is “extremely high and increasing”, a new council report on the issue also warns.
And the city council is spending a total of £22,000 every day housing those in need in bed and breakfasts and hotels because there is nowhere else for them to go.
The demand is increasing even though the council has recently increased its temporary accommodation for homeless families from 88 to 441 units.
On top of family accommodation, it also offers 430 spaces for single people.
However, the council says all of this is now full, meaning the authority has a total of 169 homeless households in hotels and bed and breakfasts around the city.
Each room costs £134 per night and the fees for this type of accommodation must be met by the council, meaning roughly £22,000 is being spent by the authority every day.
The report, which will be discussed at a Housing Scrutiny Committee meeting on October 16, says: “Wider issues with the national and Nottingham housing market have made this crisis acute, including very high rents in the private sector, well above Local Housing Allowance (LHA) levels, and a shortage of affordable homes.
“Average incomes in Nottingham are well below national averages while rent increases in the East Midlands over the last 12 months have been higher than in any other English region.
“At the same time, the private rental market within our boundaries receives pressure from the expanding student market and city professionals, further limiting supply.
“Affordability issues are worsening as the cost-of-living crisis continues and utility and food inflation impacts on a broader spectrum of household income levels, including owner occupiers who have also been significantly affected by the increase in mortgage interest rates.”
Just over 10,000 people are now waiting for a council house and on the ‘Homelink’ waiting list, up from around 8,000 in 2021.
This has largely been put down to the number of homes being purchased through right-to-buy outstripping the number being built.
The report further details the situation with rough sleeping in the city.
Cases being dealt with by the council’s case workers have risen five times over the recommended limit.
The Government recommends each case worker should have 30 active cases at any one time, but in Nottingham each officer has on average 165 active cases.
Since the end of the Everyone In scheme, which sought to get as many rough sleepers off the streets as possible amid the Covid pandemic, the number of people being found street homeless has been on the rise.
In recent months there has been a “significant increase” in street homelessness, with 47 people found sleeping on the streets every night on average.
This marks an increase of 42 per cent since September last year.
All investment in rough sleeping depends on the council successfully bidding for Government funding, and Nottingham has managed to secure one of the highest awards outside of London totalling £20m between 2021 and 2025.
The funding has helped pay for services such as rough sleeping navigators, who help people find housing when leaving hospital or prison, as well as funding 200 additional supported accommodation bed spaces.
“Whilst Nottingham is experiencing similar challenges to other major cities, there are a combination of factors locally that are amplifying the risk of homelessness and have caused difficulty in preventing and responding to it,” the report adds.
“The wider housing market pressures related to rent affordability and imbalance of housing supply and demand, against the background of the cost of living crisis, will likely exacerbate demand for homelessness services even as we work to reduce them.
“Whilst every effort will be made, numbers of homeless households, use of temporary accommodation and costs to the council are projected to continue to increase in the short-term pending the achievement of the longer-term outcomes.”
