South London family spent 5 years in 'temporary' home 140 miles away due to chronic shortage in city
Another Lambeth family had been in temporary accommodation in Herefordshire for over four years of the end of 2024, according to the same FOI, submitted by the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS).
Lambeth's town hall in Brixton is more than a three-and-a-half hour drive from Herefordshire Council's headquarters in Hereford. The train journey from Brixton to Hereford takes around 3 hours and 45 minutes and involves several changes.
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Other families from Lambeth were living in temporary accommodation in Walsall in the West Midlands (127 miles away), Birmingham (121 miles away) and Tendring in Essex (86 miles away) as of December 31, 2024. FOI data shows the number of Lambeth households placed in temporary accommodation outside of London has increased nine-fold in four years from 29 in 2020 to 256 at the end of last year.
Councils are required by law to provide people living in the borough who become homeless with temporary accommodation while they look to find a suitable permanent home. A severe shortage of cheap housing in London and the South East coupled with a surge in people becoming homeless means local authorities in the capital are placing more and more people further away from the city.
Lambeth Council is currently providing 4,700 homeless households with temporary accommodation—an increase of 50 per cent in the last two years. The council spends £100 million per year on housing families in temporary accommodation.
A council spokesperson said: "Lambeth is one of the country's biggest social housing landlords, with more than 33,000 council homes, but we are on the front line of a national housing crisis. We are committed to providing the most suitable accommodation available to everyone who comes to us needing a roof above their heads.
"But the acute shortage of affordable accommodation - in Lambeth, London and the South East - and the rising number of people needing a home means it is not always possible to find suitable, permanent accommodation within our borough. This means we sometimes have to house people in temporary accommodation, outside Lambeth, until somewhere permanent becomes available."
The same FOI revealed one family from Newham had been sent to Middlesbrough, around 250 miles away, where they lived in temporary accommodation for eight years.
Got a story? Email robert.firth@reachplc.com
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