Campaigning charity Shelter has responded angrily to new figures showing that councils are spending ever-more on temporary accommodation for homeless households in England.

The figures for the 2023/24 year reveals that councils spent a total of £2.3 billion on temporary accommodation between April 2023 and March 2024.

This was a rise of 29% in the last year and almost doubled (97% increase) in the last five years. More than one third of the latest total – £780 million – was spent on emergency B&Bs and hostels, which Shelter says are often considered the worst type of temporary accommodation where families can be crammed into one room, forced to share beds and lack basic cooking facilities. 

Polly Neate, chief executive of the charity, says: “It’s absurd that we keep throwing good money after bad into grim homeless accommodation instead of investing in solutions that would help families into a safe and secure home.  

“Decades of failure to build enough social homes combined with runaway rents and rising evictions has caused homelessness to spiral. Too many children are being forced to grow up homeless in grotty, cramped hostels and B&Bs, sharing beds with their siblings, with no place to play or do their homework.    

“Rather than sinking billions into temporary solutions every year, the government must invest in genuinely affordable social homes and support councils so they can start building them. Building 90,000 social homes a year for ten years would not only end homelessness, they would relieve the pressure on private renting and pay for themselves through generating new jobs and creating savings for the NHS and benefits bill.”