Homeless Link has called for a ban on no fault evictions after the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities released the quarterly Statutory Homelessness statistics for April to June 2022.
Key findings are as follows:
- 5,940 households were threatened as a result of a S21 ‘no fault’ eviction, a 76% increase from the previous year
- 17,530 households were at risk of, experiencing homelessness due to the end of a private rented sector tenancy, a 61% increase since this time last year
- Overall, 72,210 households were assessed by their local authority as either threatened with, or experiencing homelessness, an increase of 1.3% since this time last year
Responding to the statistics, Fiona Colley, director of Social Change at Homeless Link, the national membership charity for frontline homelessness organisations, said: “Everyone deserves a safe place to live and the support they need to keep it, with preventing people from losing their home key to this.
“Therefore, the continued spike in the number of households being threatened with homelessness due to evictions from private tenancies is extremely worrying, especially given rents continue to rise across the country.
“The stress and anxiety of homelessness spreads through people’s lives.
“We know from our own research that people experiencing homelessness are more likely to suffer from physical and mental health issues.
“It means people have greater barriers to work and can have a negative effect on children’s development.
“The Government first promised to ban no fault evictions in 2019, but still it remains a major driver of homelessness.
“It then brought forward a White Paper over five months ago promising sweeping reforms of the private rented sector, but thousands of people continue to be made homeless through no fault of their own.
“Delaying the S21 ban any longer, as more and people struggle to keep up with rising costs, will be devastating for the millions of private renters across England.”
Homeless Link recently responded to new statistics detailing the number of deaths of people experiencing homelessness for the calendar year of 2021.
Homeless Link is the national membership charity for frontline homelessness services, representing over 900 organisations across England.
Image: Tap 10/Shutterstock
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