"Homelessness crisis" - Charity fears having to turn people away
The leader of Liverpool City Council has called for urgent government funding
A Liverpool charity supporting homeless people and rough sleepers is worried about the prospect of having to turn people away - as the demand for support continues to grow.
Liverpool City Council leader Councillor Liam Robinson says the city region is suffering a 'housing and homelessness crisis' - he has written to the government to call for more funding.
He said:
"What we've seen over the past three years is our homelessness budget and temporary accommodation budget go from from £250,000 up now to £19 million because of the amount of people predominantly who have been served eviction notices in the private rented sector because of all the things that have happened across the country, in the economy, with interest rates spiralling to private landlords, mortgages are going up and they're passing that on to private tenants that can't afford it, but equally as well through legislative inaction from the government.
"The fact that we've failed to bring through the rent and reform bill, the fact that we've failed to ban Section 21 no fault evictions, and the fact that they haven't upgraded housing benefits in line with inflation and the rising cost that we've seen in the sector is that perfect storm that is a national emergency and it's particularly acute here in Liverpool."
550 households are currently living in B&Bs, with 250 of those families with children.
Cllr Robinson added:
"We're getting about £1.9 million a year. We know that kind of absolutely the demand is up near 19 million now because of all of those national pressures and that's why we need additional resources.
"We're not unique, most cities are in exactly the same boat because this is a national crisis. The government has to act."
The Paper Cup Project offers food, hot drinks, clothes, support and advice to help rough sleepers.
CEO Michelle Langan said:
"When we first started the shop - I think we're probably seeing about three times as many people as what we were first seeing when we first opened in February last year.
"There's definitely been much more of an increase over this past year, that's when we 've seen more new faces coming in.
"We just haven't got enough actual houses to offer to people. There's also a lack of social housing. In Liverpool, we really need to be looking at building more social housing, I'm sure it's something the council are looking at.
"You can only give people property when the right properties exist and I think there's a huge lack of housing available at the moment.
"There's a lot of Afghan refugees who were given a safe passage to the UK and they were offered support, they were offered help and accommodation - that offer is coming to a close before Christmas so we are going to end up with a lot of people who are, through no fault to their own, going to be on the streets.
"There's not enough houses to put them in, so the burden is then going to fall on local authorities.
"I feel a lot of people are going to end up on the streets. You look at London - a lot of the London authorities have not got the money to be able to put those people into accommodation so we're going to see a massive surge in people sleeping rough on the streets before Christmas and I think it's going to result in a lot of deaths, sadly, as well.
"I speak regularly with other charities - everybody is worried that we're not going to have the resources to support the growing surge in numbers.
"We're already pushing capacity with the amount of numbers that we're dealing with and I think there's a worry that if these numbers grow, which they're going to, then we're physically not going to be able to support people."
A Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities spokesperson said:
"We are determined to prevent homelessness before it occurs. That is why we are providing Liverpool City Council £3.9 million through the Homelessness Prevention Grant, helping those at risk of homelessness to access the private rented sector.
"Our Renters Reform Bill will deliver a fairer private rented sector, abolishing Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions so that all tenants have greater security in their homes and are empowered to challenge poor practice without worrying about retaliatory eviction."