This week’s column is about homelessness and the growing need for temporary accommodation. Crawley Borough Council has a duty to house local people if they either become homeless or are at imminent risk of it.

It was once said that the temporary accommodation bill for local councils was what kept their Chief Executives awake at night, because inevitably what the Government gives councils was never enough to cover the costs.

Recently we thought in Crawley there would be a £900,000 overspend in the already substantial budget allocated for temporary accommodation this year (the council had been incredibly pessimistic setting the original figure).  This is all local taxpayers’ money over and above what the council will get back from the Government.  Because of how bad the problem is however, we have had to adjust this to £1.2 million.

And that’s assuming it doesn’t get worse. In January 2020, CBC were working with an additional 177 households not yet at the stage of making a homeless application but are in difficulty. This had increased to 667 as of last month.

Crawley Borough Council has a solid record of looking after residents, and rough sleepers are in single figures currently.

But that is because the council has urgent arrangements to put a roof over the heads of those who qualify.  In September 2019 (just one month) we had 167 households in temporary accommodation.  September 2022 has already seen over twice that number, with 355 households needing support, just to give an idea of scale.

What is causing this? Until this year, the main reason was always family exclusion.  But now it is far and away people losing their private rented accommodation through evictions.

It’s also something that happens if you have a Tory Government whether through incompetence or design has manufactured a situation where there is unprecedented demand, as there is now.

Cllr Michael Jones

Leader, Crawley Borough Council

We will do what we can as a council, to give existing residents security in where they live. But while it really needs Government action, I have no faith this ideological Tory Government can run a bath, never mind the country.