Tom Gordon to Government: “go further and end homelessness for good”

Following the Government’s £5.2 million announcement for winter homelessness support in Yorkshire & Humber, Liberal Democrat MP Tom Gordon has called on ministers to do much more to deliver real, long-term solutions to end homelessness – not just short-term fixes.

With record numbers of households now living in temporary accommodation across England, including nearly 170,000 children, this latest Government announcement falls far short of addressing the scale of the housing crisis which many councils are struggling to manage against a backdrop of budget cuts and spiralling costs of supporting families in need of temporary accommodation. Official figures show that local authorities now face a £2.8 billion bill for temporary accommodation in 2024–25, up from £2.3 billion last year, a cost many fear is unsustainable. Meanwhile, over 1.3 million households are on social housing waiting lists.

Tom Gordon Liberal Democrat MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough said:

It’s heartbreaking that so many families and children in Yorkshire will face this winter without a safe, warm place to call home. The Government must step up to end homelessness once and for all.

We are still waiting on a new homelessness strategy, which should provide more support for councils to tackle the huge rise in families in temporary accommodation. The Government must also set a statutory target for building social homes to tackle the 1.3 million households on waiting lists.

Liberal Democrats will continue to urge the Government to be ambitious. That includes building the social homes we need – 150,000 social homes annually – abolishing Section 21 no-fault evictions and setting out a strategy to end all forms of homelessness. No more should families be forced to sleep rough and without their basic right to shelter.

• The latest government figures show record numbers of households in temporary accommodation.
• Levels of rough sleeping have more than doubled since 2010.
• The number of households in temporary accommodation (TA) has more than doubled since its low of around 50,000 in 2010/11, with the latest quarterly statistics release reporting 120,040 households, a 15.7 percent increase from the previous year.
• Over 164,000 homeless children are currently living in temporary accommodation across England—the highest number on record.