Green councillors say North Yorkshire's £18m homelessness plan must be matched by affordable homes

Green councillors have welcomed plans for an £18.1m investment in temporary accommodation across North Yorkshire, but say the scale of the programme underlines the urgent need for the council to deliver many more genuinely affordable homes.

The proposals, which will be considered by North Yorkshire Council’s Executive on Tuesday 15 September, would provide 112 units of temporary accommodation and reduce reliance on expensive hotels and B&Bs.

The £18.1m programme would be funded through £9.097m from the Housing Revenue Account and £9.002m from the council’s General Fund.

The Executive is also being asked to delegate decisions on individual business cases for the £9m General Fund to senior officers.

Green councillors agree that bringing more temporary accommodation under council control is a sensible investment and should provide better value than continuing to pay for costly nightly and B&B accommodation.

But they say the council now needs to match its investment in temporary accommodation with much greater ambition to provide permanent homes at rents local people can genuinely afford.

Research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation points to the shortage of social housing, high private rents and insecurity in the private rented sector as drivers of homelessness and the growing use of temporary accommodation.

Coun Mike Schofield (Harlow and St George’s) said: “I agree that spending public money on homes the council can control is far better than continually paying for expensive and often unsuitable B&B accommodation. But we also need to reduce the number of families who become homeless in the first place. 

"We desperately need more homes that people on ordinary and low incomes can genuinely afford. We need more council and social housing. And we need to understand what’s driving homelessness so we can prevent it.

“And £18m is a lot of money to be spending, so we need to be clear on where the money’s going, what homes are being provided and how it will reduce the need for expensive temporary accommodation."