Outcomes of homelessness initial assessment per 1,000 households (2022/23)
These indicators look at three types of statutory duties that local authorities owe households at risk of or experiencing homelessness in the financial year of 2021/22:
- Prevention duty: Local authorities owe prevention duties to help stop households at risk of homelessness losing their accommodation.
- Relief duty: If a household is homeless, the local authority owes them a relief duty to provide some sort of accommodation.
- Main duty: The main homelessness duty to provide accomodation (which until 2018 was the only statutory duty owed to homeless households) comes into effect when the relief duty has failed and accommodation has not been secured.
As a proportion of the population, more households were assessed for homelessness and were deemed to be owed homelessness duties by local authorities in London than in the rest of England in 2022/23.
Outcomes of homelessness relief duties by local authorities (2022/23)
When trying to prevent homelessness, Local Authorities in London were similarly successful in securing accommodation as those in the rest of England. However, 1.51 per 1,000 households in London, became homeless after being assessed as owed prevention by their Local Authority. And local authorities in London were unable to secure accommodation for 4.9 per 1,000 households in London, after assessing them as owed relief.
Covid changed the risks households faced of being homeless in many ways beyond the economic shock associated with the pandemic. These include the increased economic pressures as well as initiatives launched by Central and Local government to support households such as the bans on evictions and repossessions and initiatives to house people who were sleeping rough, in hotels. This time series shows how the number of homeless families has changed over the past two decades.