An East London Council is buying 26 one-bed flats from a housing association within the borough in a bid to reduce temporary accommodation pressures.
Newham Council has 6,500 households in temporary accommodation, which is the highest in the country. More than half of these households are staying in accommodation which is booked nightly and is costly to the council.
In the Summer 2024 Finance Review that was published in August the council warned it could end up spending £40million on temporary accommodation within this financial year due to spiralling costs.
During a meeting with cabinet members on 3 September Zulfiqar Ali, cabinet member for finance and resources said: “Clearly we are all aware of the unprecedented challenges that we are facing in the borough, this is a national crisis which has resulted from the failure of government policies and has had a massive impact in terms of the costs that we are incurring.
“We have the highest number of households in temporary accommodation and that pressure is growing.”
He added: “As an administration we have always done our best to support our residents because they do deserve the respect and dignity and that is what this administration is trying to do.”
Cllr Ali said the council had been “continuously exploring” all options to see how it can reduce costs, and said the acquisition programme is one way of doing that.
The flats, which the council is buying from a housing association called Look Ahead are located in Chauntler Close, which is just outside the Custom House regeneration area.
The council plans to rent the flats out to homeless families currently staying in temporary accommodation at a below market rent.
Cllr Ali said there is a large parking area which has the potential to be turned into 100 new homes in the future.
Sarah Ruiz, statutory deputy mayor and cabinet member for environment, sustainable transport, children services and education asked Cllr Ali what would happen to the residents who are currently living in there.
Cllr Ruiz said: “Chauntler Close is currently occupied and we are buying it and those tenants will be rehoused somewhere else, I just wanted an assurance that each one of them is dealt with sensitively because they would have lived there for quite a long time.”
The mayor of Newham, Rokhsana Fiaz added: “I guess the other issue is if that doesn’t happen then it adds to the pressure in terms of potential homelessness.. all be it [the current residents] will have rights?”
Ms Fiaz asked for the issue to be passed onto housing services and cabinet members proceeded to approve the report.
The council is expected to become the new freeholder in August 2025 and a third party will rent out the flats, which will allow the council to discharge its duty owed to homeless households.
