Over 100,000 live in Temporary Accommodation

The number of households in temporary accommodation nationally was 101,070 at the end of March 2005 - remaining at the same level for three consecutive quarters. The Government's homelessness strategy 'Sustainable Communities: settled homes; changing lives' aims to cut this number by half by 2010.

National Statistics published today show homelessness acceptances in the South East falling by 1040 compared with the same period last year. The number of people becoming homeless has continued to decrease nationally for over a year. The South East saw a fall of 5 percent in the number of families living in temporary accommodation over the last year.

Shepway Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader, Lynne Beaumont welcomed the decrease in the figures of new homeless, but wants to see the Government redouble efforts to get people out of temporary accommodation into proper housing.

Lynne said:

"Although it's good that the number of people in temporary accomodation is dropping in the South East, for families caught in temporary or B&B accomodation, I'm afraid it's still not good enough.

"Shepway's most recent Homeless Strategy was in July 2003, and identified that there are over 2,000 vacant dwellings in the district. We've got to monitor how this figure is changing, and work to get this figure down, and get people out of temporary accomodation and into real homes."

The Shepway Council web site has more about Housing and Homelessness locally, including the July 2003 Homeless Strategy at http://www.shepway.gov.uk/housing/

Yvette Cooper, Minister for Housing at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, said:

"We have cut rough sleeping by 70 per cent and ended the scandal of families living in bed and breakfast accommodation for long periods. But we need to keep up the progress on homelessness and get families who are in temporary accommodation into a longer term home. That includes building more social housing and homes for shared ownership, as well as prevention."