The draft document sets out the council’s priorities to help prevent homelessness and to tackle rough sleeping at a time when London’s housing crisis is having a major impact on residents and councils’ budgets. Councils in the capital are collectively spending £3 million every day – £90 million every month – on temporary accommodation.
Lambeth Council’s Cabinet will meet on 9 December to evaluate how this unprecedented demand for emergency housing threatens the future of services in the borough and will consider new proposals to meet a significant part of its £69million funding gap.
Deputy Leader Councillor Danny Adilypour, Lambeth’s Cabinet Member for Housing, Investment and New Homes said:
“We are proposing this strategy against a backdrop of stretched financial resources. The cost of housing homeless families rose to £90 million this year alone, £30 million more than what was planned. This means we are now spending £250,000 a night on temporary accommodation. Lambeth’s dedicated homeless prevention team are working really hard to implement plans to reduce the costs of temporary accommodation, but there is no quick fix to these challenges.
“We want to hear from all Lambeth residents so we can shape our draft homelessness strategy to reflect their priorities. We will also be consulting homeless households living in temporary accommodation.
“Our draft homelessness strategy recognises the important contribution an effective approach to tackling homelessness can make towards reducing inequality. It stresses the vital role of working in partnership with our communities as well as the need for early intervention to prevent the risk of homelessness and to reduce increasing strain on our limited finite resources.”
Cllr Adilypour gave further details of the council’s approach to tackling homelessness, particularly concerning the increasing number of households living in temporary accommodation.
“We have already made changes to Lambeth’s housing allocations policy to make the system fairer and more responsive to community needs, particularly for those in the most urgent need of social housing.
“With 45,000 households on the Lambeth housing register, including over 4,700 in temporary accommodation, and only about 800 council and housing association tenancies available each year, we face a challenging task.
“More challenging decisions and deeper savings will be necessary to maintain financial stability and continue to provide services for Lambeth’s most vulnerable residents. If we fail to make these difficult decisions now, we risk worsening our financial position, which could lead to the need for even more drastic measures.
“In our vision for Lambeth 2030, we set out our aim to proactively tackle inequalities so that children can have the best start in life, and so everyone can feel safe and thrive in a place of opportunity. In September 2024, there were around 6,000 children living in temporary accommodation in our borough. We don’t want our children growing up and reaching adulthood never having known any other home than a temporary one.”
