Liberal Democrat councillors have expressed deep concern over the length of time families are staying in emergency accommodation in the borough. The figures have been revealed in the Council’s Best Value Performance Plan 2003-2004. They show that families are staying in emergency homes almost twice as long as the Council’s target for 2002/03 with the average stay in bed and breakfast accommodation for a family being almost two years.

The statistics, which include families with dependent children, pregnant women, and unintentionally homeless, display the result of a severe shortage of ‘decent’ accommodation in the borough, with 58% of local authority homes viewed as non ‘decent’ at 1st April 2002.

Liberal Democrat housing spokesperson, David Beacham blames the failure of the Council and successive governments to replace council housing stock over the last 20 years for the housing crisis. Now he is calling for the Council to lobby hard to gain the extra funds needed to improve the housing stock and look at ways to rapidly reduce the time families are having to spend in bedsits and hostels.

Cllr Beacham (Alexandra) comments:

“Decades of neglect by both government and council have brought us to this situation. Tenants have slowly bought up good quality discounted housing stock over the last 20 years and it has not been replenished. The result in 2003 is that much of the accommodation is below the Government’s decent stock standard.

“It is totally unacceptable to have families living in bedsits for the length of time that some of them are. The Council needs to address this situation urgently and make the government aware of how bad the problem has become in Haringey.”