Councils spend £1.6bn a year on 'temporary accommodation' for homeless families - which includes some of the worst housing conditions in the country. But who is getting the money? A joint investigation between me, Vicky Spratt and @sdelahunty.bsky.social tried to provide an answer... - ThreadSky

peteapps.bsky.social • 7 days ago

Councils spend £1.6bn a year on 'temporary accommodation' for homeless families - which includes some of the worst housing conditions in the country.

But who is getting the money? A joint investigation between me, Vicky Spratt and @sdelahunty.bsky.social tried to provide an answer...

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lewisherbert.bsky.social•7 days ago

Truly shocking analysis, thankyou.
Big businesses & agencies making a fortune out of suffering homeless households.
Building transitional homes must be top new build priority, funded by top slicing Homes England £bns.
Ending ASAP all inadequate or out of area temp accom.
Using spare land & MMC too.

peteapps.bsky.social•7 days ago

We sent FOIs to English, Welsh and Scottish local authorities asking for the providers they have used for TA over the last five years and the amount they have spent on all of them

peteapps.bsky.social•7 days ago

The data is disturbingly random: a motley collection of pubs, hostels, hotels, bunkhouses, individual private landlords and dozens of tiny companies with just a couple of directors getting millions to house some of our most vulnerable households

peteapps.bsky.social•7 days ago

But a picture did start to emerge. The biggest cash sumse (especially in London where a lot of this money is spent) essentially go to middle-men - letting agencies like Theori, Dabora Conway, Elliott Leigh - all of them have taken more than £30m to provide TA

peteapps.bsky.social•7 days ago

The model here is those "guaranteed rent" ads you might have seen on billboards in big cities. The agency signs a deal with the landlord and guarantees them rental payments, then they provide beds to the local authority at a nightly rate, and take the difference as profit

peteapps.bsky.social•7 days ago

So we can see the transfer of public money into private hands - the financialisation of homelessness. Not all providers will be bad, but they are almost entirely unregulated. The only enforcement comes from the council, which needs them in order to meet its homelessness duties

peteapps.bsky.social•7 days ago

This is a mad way to provide what is in many cases long-term housing to our poorest households, with seriously bad outcomes - especially for children. Expensive and inefficient for taxpayers, miserable and dangerous for families

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