Vulnerable families who are unable to afford spiralling rent costs are being classified as “intentionally homeless”, a TLE investigation has revealed.
With a shortage of affordable housing capitulating the cost of living to unaffordable levels, many people on low incomes have been turning to local authorities for help when they are told to vacate their property.
But many who have approached their council have been told to remain in their property until they face legal action; for if they leave, they will be classified as ‘intentionally homeless’.
Each year it is believed around 20,000 households are found homeless but not considered in ‘priority need’, while 9 per cent of cases, or 10,000 households are homeless and in need but considered to be intentionally so.
According to a 2011 study on hidden homelessness in England 45 per cent of people surveyed satisfied the priority need criteria when they made a homeless application.
However, 46 per cent of these were found to be intentionally homeless and so not entitled to accommodation, which indicates that intentionality decisions simply perpetuate homelessness rather than solve it.
Under the Housing Act 1996, “A person becomes homeless intentionally if he deliberately does or fails to do anything in consequence of which he ceases to occupy accommodation which is available for his occupation and which it would have been reasonable for him to continue to occupy.”
In a number of cases, the scope of the definition has been stretched by councils across England to include tenants who have not explicitly made themselves homeless.
According to the recently published Homelessness Code of Guidance a local authority is not permitted to take into account conditions peculiar to itself, such as its resources and other demands upon it, when making its decision.
It comes amidst a rapid growth of the private rented sector that increasingly favours the landlord over the tenant.
Read the report in full here.
Since you are here
Since you are here, we wanted to ask for your help.
Journalism in Britain is under threat. The government is becoming increasingly authoritarian and our media is run by a handful of billionaires, most of whom reside overseas and all of them have strong political allegiances and financial motivations.
Our mission is to hold the powerful to account. It is vital that free media is allowed to exist to expose hypocrisy, corruption, wrongdoing and abuse of power. But we can't do it without you.
If you can afford to contribute a small donation to the site it will help us to continue our work in the best interests of the public. We only ask you to donate what you can afford, with an option to cancel your subscription at any point.
To donate or subscribe to The London Economic, click here.
The TLE shop is also now open, with all profits going to supporting our work.
The shop can be found here.
You can also SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER .
