“For far too long we have relied heavily on costly sticking plaster solutions, with councils now spending almost three billion pounds each year on temporary accommodation that only traps people in a cycle of insecurity. With sky-high rental costs and a chronic shortage of affordable homes, people across the country are being pushed to breaking point.
“There has been a seismic shift in the way homelessness has been prioritised under this new government, and we want to see this momentum continued to secure long-term changes where we prioritise ending homelessness not managing it.”
A total of 135,580 households were living in temporary accommodation as of March 2026, the latest government figures show, up 1.1% on the previous three-month period and 3.6% higher than a year earlier.
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More than 86,000 of these households contain children. Overall, 177,530 children live in temporary accommodation across England and that figure has increased 5% in just a year.
Many are living in B&Bs or hotels that leave families in overcrowded accommodation or without access to cooking, laundry or other essential facilities.
In total, £823 million was spent on B&Bs, up 89% in five years. A further £955m was spent on nightly paid, self contained accommodation, rising 348% in five years.
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It’s a crisis that is pushing local authority spending to the limit. London Councils has previously warned £5bn a day is being spent on temporary accommodation.
John Glenton, chief care and support officer at housing organisation Riverside, said: “This is having a crippling effect on the lives of families including more than 177,000 children currently living in TA.
“It has a severely detrimental impact on their development and it’s torturous for families who are deprived of their basic need for sleep, somewhere they can study and make a warm, healthy meal.
“We all know there is an urgent need to get more families out of TA and into good-quality supported housing.”
Local Government Association (LGA) estimates suggest spending is on course to rise to £4bn by the end of the decade.
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Cllr Carl Cashman, chair of the LGA’s Inclusive Growth Committee, said: “Councils are caught in a vicious cycle of ever-increasing temporary accommodation costs versus static rates they receive back to cover their costs. While it’s positive that the rate of increase in spending on temporary accommodation has slowed, the fact that it’s still growing is alarming.
“The way that councils are funded and reimbursed by central government is not working, and it’s impacting the entire country due to the knock-on effect on budgets and all other services.”
Crisis chief executive Downie called for the government to unfreeze local housing allowance rates at next month’s budget to prevent more households falling into homelessness.
A Conservative proposal to cut local housing allowance rates further to fund increased defence spending has sparked political debate ahead of the autumn statement.
“Behind today’s figures are families and individuals whose lives are being put on hold while they’re forced to spend months or even years trapped in temporary accommodation,” said Downie. “What we’re facing isn’t inevitable. It’s the result of a system that isn’t working properly – and it’s within our power to change it.”
Prime minister Andy Burnham said, in his first speech after being named Labour leader, that paying for temporary accommodation is a barrier to improving people’s lives.
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He has pledged to ramp up council housebuilding to reduce spending on temporary accommodation in the long-term.
Mairi MacRae, director of policy and campaigns at Shelter, said: “We have spent years treating the symptoms of the housing emergency, without addressing its cause. Without enough social homes, we’re throwing money at private companies to provide cramped and often grim temporary accommodation, which gets us no closer to ending homelessness.
“The government must use the autumn budget to get councils building again and prevent families from being wrenched from their communities and stuck in damaging temporary accommodation. It should remove the historic housing debt that is blocking councils from building social rent homes and immediately unfreeze housing benefit so families can afford a privately rented home in the meantime.”
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