Council to pay out after housing families in B&Bs for longer than six weeks

A local authority is set to pay out thousands of pounds after it housed 40 homeless families in bed and breakfast accommodation for longer than the recommended limit of six weeks.

The Local Government Ombudsman had launched an investigation after receiving separate complaints from two women, Ms A and Ms B about arrangements made by Westminster City Council.

Ms A spent seven months and Ms B stayed for five months in B&Bs. They both said the time in B&Bs was stressful, difficult and unpleasant for their families.

A further 38 complaints were made to the LGO during the course of its investigation.

Westminster told the Ombudsman that a combination of the changes to the housing benefit system and the financial downturn had contributed to more people applying as homeless.

The authority said it did not have enough emergency accommodation to avoid using B&Bs, or to move people to self-contained accommodation within the six-week limit set out in The Homelessness (Suitability of Accommodation) (England) Order 2003 and the Homelessness Code of Guidance.

Westminster added that, from a peak of 170 families in February 2013, by July no family had been in B&B accommodation for more than six weeks.
 
Dr Jane Martin, the Ombudsman, said: “I am in no doubt that the council has taken seriously its obligations to the homeless and welcome what it has now done to get a grip of this problem.

“However the council had not complied with its statutory duties.  Its failure to avoid the use of bed and breakfast for families in excess of six weeks has caused real injustice to those families.  The families concerned have been deprived of suitable accommodation.”

Westminster has offered to pay £500 to the two original complainants to acknowledge that it was unable to provide self-contained accommodation after the initial six-week period and to pay an extra £500 for each additional six-week period.
 
A similar remedy will be provided to the other 38 people affected.

Responding to the LGO’s report, Cllr Jonathan Glanz, Westminster’s Cabinet Member for Housing, said: “We recognise that families should not remain in bed and breakfast accommodation for more than six weeks and apologise to households who were in this situation.

“Despite our extensive planning for the implementation of the housing benefit cap, we had not anticipated the severity of how the credit crunch would restrict supply and increase demand from people in the private rented sector. At times we dealt with more than five times the usual homeless acceptances – up to 100 each month.”

Cllr Glanz added: “It was never going to be easy reforming housing benefit, particularly in an area like Westminster where we have the second highest property prices in the UK. To give an example, we had more than 100 households in receipt of £1,000+ per week in housing benefit before the changes. It is also worth remembering that more than 10% of those affected by the housing benefit changes live here in Westminster.”

He insisted that these factors had created an unprecedented situation, which the council could not have foreseen.

“Despite these circumstances, we have worked hard to increase our supply of temporary homes,” Cllr Glanz said. “We have used different providers to secure nearly 1,000 additional homes in the last year. As a result, since July we have zero families in B&B for more than six weeks and fewer than 10 in B&B for under six weeks.”

Cllr Glanz said Westminster had also helped more than 400 people to renegotiate their rents with landlords in order to prevent them becoming homeless and pledged to create more than 1,000 jobs.
 
“If we can deal with this challenge, then any of the 78 local authorities with families still in B&B accommodation for more than six weeks should also be able to,” he claimed.