Councils to receive £30,000 per year for homelessness

Councils will receive a total of £150m to tackle homelessness from the government, evenly split over the next three years.

Each local authority will receive at least £30,000 a year. Newham, Solihull and Sunderland are receiving annual increases of over 25%.

London will receive £22m a year, with Westminster taking the largest share of £6.6m annually.

Junior housing minister Iain Wright, who made the announcement yesterday, said: “We’ve seen huge progress over the last decade with new cases of homelessness at the lowest levels in 20 years. Rough sleeping has fallen by two-thirds, use of temporary accommodation is falling and the number of 16- and 17-year-olds in bed and breakfast has fallen by a third since we set the target a year ago.”

Statistics published in September showed new cases of homelessness had fallen to 15,960, an 18% annual fall.