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Use of temporary accommodation is “rising remorselessly” despite a fall in homelessness acceptances, according to the 2020 UK Housing Survey.

The survey reports the total again rose by 5% year-on-year to top more than 86,000 last June – 79% above its low point eight years ago.

London continues to account for two-thirds of the total number of placements at any one point in time – 57,000 as of June last year.

Related spending by councils is also growing quickly, totalling almost £1.1bn to March last year – a 78% in just five years.

The survey references a London Assembly report from May last year highlighted that the biggest temporary accommodation spend was by Newham (£61m in 2017/18) but that the largest increase was in Hackney, where spending doubled in just five years.

Most placements are in self-contained housing in England, with only 20% non-self-contained.

However, the survey identifies 7,110 households were living in B&B accommodation, up 3.2% from 6,890 at the same time in 2018, and 246% higher than in 2009.

The survey also sees signs of stress evident in the levels of out-of-borough placement use in England.

As of June last year, such placements numbered 23,430 with 86% of these from London boroughs.

“At 27% of the national total of placements, this is substantial, although the proportion has stayed steady for the past few years,” the survey says.

After a very marked increase in the years to 2010, the survey shows Scotland’s TA placements have since remained in 10-11,000 household range at any one time.

As of March last year there were 10,989 households in temporary accommodation in Scotland, a similar number to the previous year.

The survey saw most placements in ordinary social housing stock (around 60%) and a minority (25% as of March last year) involve ‘non-self-contained accommodation’ within hostels or B&B.

Use of B&B peaked in 2018 and has since fallen slightly.

The survey says, on average, households spent just under six months in temporary accommodation in Scotland in 2018/19 – but for 14% of statutorily homeless households the period spent was over a year.

Average length of stay is shown as varying markedly between councils – ranging from a couple of months in months in lower pressure authorities to around eight months in high pressure areas  but also remote authorities such as Shetland.

In Wales, the survey sees a reversal in  the downward trend between 2012-2015.

After a substantial drop in 2015 following the significant legislative change that year, placements grew again to top 2,226 at the end of March last year – up 8% on the number in March 2018.

To the survey, this is the highest figure at the end of any quarter since the 2015 legislative change.

Cardiff and Newport are identified as the authorities making most use of temporary accommodation.

Given the success of up-front homelessness prevention efforts – in 2018/19, 68% of households threatened with homelessness were officially recorded as having had this averted – a reduced ‘inflow’ of cases might have been expected to produce a fall in placements, the survey says.

But the absence of such a positive effect so far “appears to reflect underlying structural pressures driving homelessness in Wales,” it says.

Use of temporary accommodation in Northern Ireland remains relatively high, in part, the survey says, because of high levels of acceptances.

The overall number of placements has moved within a fairly narrow band over recent years.

Nevertheless, the survey says the figure for 2017/18 – the latest year for which published data is currently available – was the highest of the decade, at just over 3,000.

The survey references a new statistical series in which the Northern Ireland Housing Executive reports a breakdown of temporary accommodation placements over a six-month period, according to the type of housing concerned.

This, the survey says, shows that bed and breakfast, hostels and similar forms of non-self-contained accommodation accounted for more than half of the 1,629 total placements made in the first and second quarters of 2018/19.

Private single lets account for the bulk of placements at a point in time reflecting the fact that such placements are, on average, of longer duration, the survey says.

Even so, the survey says of the 2,065 placements as at  January last year, some 586 – more than a quarter of the total – were living in non-self-contained premises.

Within this cohort, almost half (45%) had been accommodated as such for more than six months, with a quarter (26%) resident for more than a year.