Harrogate Borough Council is spending £25,000 a month on temporary hotels and bed and breakfasts for homeless people, a freedom of information request has revealed.
The council, which has a statutory duty to prevent homelessness, is paying individual hotels up to £126 a night because its hostels are full.
The figures highlight how acute and costly the issue of homelessness is in the Harrogate district.
The Stray Ferret submitted a freedom of information request after a well-placed source revealed some of the town’s best-known hotels were being paid to put up homeless people.
The council confirmed at the time it used hotels “as a last resort” but declined to reveal costs.
Following the FoI request it has now released details of the monthly amounts paid to each of the hotel and B&B accounts used to provide temporary accommodation for homeless people in the six months from April to September last year.
The names of the individual establishments have not been released to protect the identity of vulnerable people but the sums for each one range from £30 to £126 a night.
Two hotels each received more than £10,000 from the council in August and one received more than £13,000 in July. Payments are subsidised through housing benefits.
‘No one should ever sleep on the streets’
The Stray Ferret asked the council about the sums and the amount of accommodation it had for homeless people in the district.
A council spokesperson said:
“We believe no one should ever be sleeping on the streets, and should an individual or a family become homeless we have a statutory responsibility to prevent this and several options available.
“This includes working with families, landlords or mortgage providers to help people stay in their homes, provide financial support to cover arrears or identify alternative private rental accommodation.
“Additional to this, when all other options have been exhausted, is our temporary accommodation – including hostels in Harrogate, Ripon and Knaresborough – to ensure residents have somewhere safe to stay and not end up sleeping on the streets.
“If we have no availability in our hostels, or they are not suitable for the individual or family, then we may need to place them in a B&B or a hotel temporarily.
“We use a variety, depending on availability and any specific needs that may be required. For example, to support a family and/or individual with additional needs that may require an accessible room. As such, this will naturally cost more than accommodation for a single adult who requires no additional support.
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The spokesperson added:
“The cost of using B&Bs or hotels will understandably vary throughout the year but on average in the last 12 months, it has cost around £25,000 per month and is subsidised through housing benefits.
“During this time, a dedicated housing options officer works with each household, alongside partner organisations, to ensure the correct support is provided. This includes health and well-being support, budget advice and independent living skills.
“This is a short-term arrangement until either a vacancy within our hostel accommodation becomes available or a more permanent housing solution is found.
“We are committed to providing decent and quality homes for everyone in the Harrogate district. To achieve this, we have a number of plans in place; such as requiring developers to provide a specific amount of affordable housing (40 per cent or 30 per cent depending on location), building our own stock through our housing company Bracewell Homes, as well as encouraging private landlords to return empty properties back into use.
“Tackling homelessness is something that all local authorities face but we are determined to meet these challenges and ensure no one ends up sleeping on the streets.”
