Lord Ouseley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Ouseley on 2016-05-24.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to take any action to ensure that local authorities comply with their legal duty to provide to homeless families temporary accommodation that is safe and suitable.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
The Housing Act 1996 requires that local housing authorities must ensure that all temporary accommodation they secure is suitable. Not to do so is unlawful. Households in temporary accommodation have the legal right to seek a review of any decision to place them in unsuitable accommodation. If households are unsatisfied with the response then they have redress to the courts.
To help frontline decision makers make those decisions right first time DCLG fund the National Homelessness Advice Service to provide free expert advice, training and support to homelessness professionals. In December 2015 Government also provided a £5 million fund to help the 25 councils facing the most significant homelessness pressures to ensure people are moved from temporary accommodation and into suitable homes as soon as possible.
Households leaving temporary accommodation now spend, on average, less time in temporary accommodation than they did in 2010. The numbers of households in temporary accommodation remain well below their peak, when they hit 101,000 in 2004.
