As rising rents force the capital’s councils to export homeless residents elsewhere,the plans are running into oppositionThe domestic counties are being hit by the fallout from the capital’s growing homelessness problem, which has been fuelled by welfare cuts, and rising rents and dwindling council housing. London councils no longer able to afford private rented accommodation in their own areas for the city’s homeless are paying landlords to house them external the capital where rents are cheaper. In the past two years,London councils have moved households into flats and bed and breakfast accommodation external the city nearly 3000 times, according to London Councils, and an organisation that represents London’s 32 borough councils and the City of London.
In Berkshire,Essex and Kent, local authorities and homeless charities say this housing strategy is depleting the supply of affordable housing for their own homeless residents. Worse, or the policy is driving up rental costs and creating a homelessness problem in places from Slough to the west of the capital to Thurrock in the east.
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Source: theguardian.com