New government figures reveal that local authorities spent £2.8 billion on temporary accommodation in 2024/25 to house homeless households—a 25% increase in just one year.

The data, covering April 2024 to March 2025, highlights the growing pressure on councils in England:

• Five-year trend: Spending on temporary accommodation has more than doubled (118% increase) since 2019/20.

• Emergency B&Bs and hostels: One-third of the total (£844 million) went on shared facilities, where families often must share kitchens and bathrooms with strangers.

• Nightly-paid self-contained units: Over £1 billion was spent on this accommodation type, a 79% rise from the previous year. Shelter warns that these privately managed units, while self-contained, are often as cramped as B&Bs and extremely costly.

Shelter Calls for Social Rent Homes

The campaigning charity Shelter criticised the government’s reliance on temporary accommodation, calling for a long-term solution:  “Instead of paying billions for temporary solutions, the government should focus on ending the housing emergency for good by delivering a new generation of social rent homes.”

Shelter urges the government to build on the Social and Affordable Homes Programme, setting a national target to deliver 90,000 social rent homes a year for the next decade.

Mairi MacRae, director of campaigns and policy at Shelter, added:  “While the housing emergency is draining billions in public funds, families are paying the ultimate price. Money that should be helping them into a secure home is instead spent on grim temporary accommodation, just to keep people off the streets. Private providers are cashing in on the crisis, charging huge sums for rooms where children must eat, sleep, and do homework on beds shared with siblings. We can’t afford to ignore the need for genuinely affordable social homes.”