Minister announces new law limiting time in B&Bs

The government will introduce legislation banning local
authorities from housing families with children in bed and
breakfast accommodation for longer than six weeks,
writes Anabel Unity Sale.

The statement from homelessness minister Barbara Roche follows a
bed and breakfast unit target of reducing the number of families
with children in temporary accommodation for more than six weeks,
by 2004.

Speaking at the Local Government Association’s seminar on
tackling homelessness, Roche said: “We will consult shortly on
underpinning the bed and breakfast unit’s target by making it
a statutory duty. We really want to give this target teeth.”

She added: “I am in no doubt that what we are doing is
challenging and difficult. But local authorities shouldn’t
just focus on bed and breakfast accommodation, we are interested in
your whole homelessness strategies.”