HOMELESS PEOPLE IN MORAY spent over 51,000 days in temporary accommodation last year – representing an increase of over 3000 days on the previous year.
That was the main statistic contained in a report to the Communities committee when they heard that the Council’s homelessness partners currently have more than 150 unites of temporary accommodation available for homeless households.
These range from council houses to privately run hostels or refuge accommodation for women. Despite that, there were 68 households, mainly of single people, who had to be put into bed-and-breakfast accommodation.
The report said that the need to use such accommodation demonstrated ongoing pressures faced by the council – with Councillors also informed that reconfiguring the types of temporary accommodation available for homeless individuals and families would continue in the current year.
Pressures on the local authority have not been helped either by the loss of ten units after the decommissioning of a privately-run homeless hostel – which, so far, they have not been able to replace.
The report said: “As a consequence of all these factors, the council had no alternative but to use bed-and-breakfast accommodation to meet its legal duties.
“The changing nature of homelessness now requires a greater degree of flexibility in determining the number of units that are required to meet the needs of homeless households.”
Members of the committee were told that more details would be provided in the annual report on homelessness due to be presented in November – but the fact that more households were in need of temporary accommodation was an area of obvious concern.
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