SPIRALLING expenditure spent on providing urgent accommodation to homeless people in Barnsley is being investigated by council bosses who have vowed to reduce the cost.
Figures from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government reveal £581,000 was spent in 2023 but this climbed to seven figures last year.
Costs were as low as £7,700 just a decade ago but since 2020/21 more than £3m has been spent in the town alone.
Barnsley Council said the rise in families with children requiring help was ‘worrying’ and, after Coun Jake Lodge asked the local authority what is being done to allay the expenditure, bosses confirmed that earlier intervention is being employed in order to reduce the amount of people in need of emergency shelter.
The current annual cost of temporary accommodation presents a ‘significant financial risk to the council should costs continue to increase along the current trajectory’, a report said.
Coun Robin Franklin, cabinet spokesperson for regeneration and culture, added: “There is a lot being done to ensure that the use of B and B accommodation is reduced.
“The council’s team have produced a prevention strategy which will place more resource into dealing with the early intervention and prevention of homelessness, in the first instance.
“Too many people are presenting as homeless when they are already in crisis.
“Placing more support and resource into working with people and families at a much earlier stage, and providing continued support, will ultimately reduce the use of emergency and temporary accommodation.
“However, there are simply not enough affordable homes in our borough and nationally to ensure that people can address their housing needs and we can immediately provide affordable accommodation from our own stock when a duty is owed.
“The council’s lettings policy was revised in 2024, with changes made to ensure that we make the very best use of the stock that we have, and that we can help those in the greatest need.
“A total of 43 per cent of Barnsley Council lettings made during 2024/25 were to homeless households, which is well above the national average.
“This figure doesn’t include nominations to registered providers.
“Our lettings policy is framed to give reasonable preference to those in highest housing need and homeless applicants are awarded a high priority on the housing register.
“To ensure that we can provide emergency accommodation, the council has increased the number of temporary accommodations that we provide from our own council homes.
“We currently have 34 in our general needs stock, with a plan to increase this to 70 by 2027.
“During 2024/25, the team purchased five homes to bring into council stock for the purpose of use as temporary accommodations.
“There are plans to continue to increase council housing stock over the next four years, using some of the £43m Housing Revenue Account.”
The current range of self-contained, dispersed temporary accommodation is ‘not enough to meet demand’, meaning B and B accommodation still must be used some of it out of area to
meet statutory duties.
Housing charity Shelter called on the government to invest in long-term solutions, including 90,000 social homes a year.
Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, said: “We simply cannot continue pouring money into temporary accommodation instead of investing in solutions that will end the housing emergency for good.
“The severe lack of genuinely affordable social homes and extortionate private rents have condemned children to homelessness while councils are running out of options of where to house them.
“Families are crammed into hostel rooms and B and Bs, sent miles away from their local areas and constantly worried about if they will be homeless for weeks, months or even years.”
