Kent councils join national call for homelessness support

Pressure on the Government grows as Gravesham and Maidstone join more than 100 other councils demanding more money to address rough sleeping.

Transcript

00:00 Yesterday, nine councils in Kent were calling on the Chancellor to avert the growing crisis

00:04 of homelessness in England.

00:07 Now that number is 11.

00:09 In a statement from Maidstone Borough Council, a spokesperson stated that the council leader

00:13 David Burton agreed to sign and support the letter before the deadline.

00:18 The reason why his name is not on the final list of signatories is not yet clear.

00:22 Another council leader supporting the letter is Gravesham's John Burdon.

00:26 He says that homeless costs have skyrocketed from £400,000 to £1.8 million over two years

00:34 and these costs are leading to cuts.

00:37 For example, this year we couldn't continue with the fireworks and there would be other

00:44 things we're having to do such as last night we had to put a very small increase in the

00:49 car park charges.

00:50 It hasn't gone up for four years and we've just put it up a little bit now.

00:55 So these effects are affecting our budget line.

00:58 We're trying to maintain services for the residents but the cost of homelessness has

01:04 been significant for us.

01:06 These leaders join 119 other council leaders from across the political spectrum in asking

01:12 for appropriate funding to tackle rough sleeping, including a raise in the local housing allowance

01:17 to help those in need cover 30% of local market rent and £450 over the next two years for

01:23 various different schemes.

01:26 One council who agreed to sign the letter was Canterbury City Council.

01:30 They say that freezes on the local housing allowance have cost the council around £800,000

01:35 and that these costs are expected to increase further in the coming months.

01:40 With winter coming on I think there is an absolute realisation across all parties that

01:46 rising costs of everything, cost of living crisis generally, rising costs of accommodation,

01:56 increased demand and then the winter pressures that we know are coming upon us has created

02:03 truthfully a perfect storm.

02:04 We reached out to the UK government today to find out what their response would be to

02:09 the letter.

02:10 While they highlighted the £1 billion they've committed over the next three years to preventing

02:15 homelessness they are not going to address any of the demands in the letter.

02:20 What we do know is that if homelessness continues to rise councils here in Kent will be forced

02:26 to make increasingly difficult decisions.

02:29 Oliver Leeds for The Sacks reporting for KMTV.