The money will be split between charity Shelter, the Community Practitioners and Health Visitors' Association and the Field Land Foundation. It will also pay for research into families in temporary accommodation and evaluate the most effective types of support.
Roche also announced plans to stop councils from placing families with children in B&Bs for more than six weeks, and only then in emergencies. After that, they must be found permanent homes.
The changes will aim to ensure councils give families in temporary accommodation access to health, education and social services, and that all accommodation used by councils meets minimum standards.
The consultation on how to strengthen existing legislation will begin in the New Year, with a view to launching new standards next autumn. Homelessness directorate head Louise Casey said: "We won't need primary legislation but we will change the law under existing homelessness legislation."
Two-thirds of the 81,000 households who live in temporary accommodation in England have children. Last year the government pledged that no families with children would be in such accommodation by March 2004.
And this week, Shelter and fellow charity End Child Poverty warned that government plans to end child poverty will not be met unless the rising numbers of families in B&Bs is tackled.
Roche's announcement comes as Housing Today launched its Christmas appeal to raise funds for domestic violence charity Refuge. Latest government estimates found 20,000 households were made homeless due to domestic violence in the course of one year.
Refuge will not be sharing in the £350,000 pot, but a spokeswoman for Refuge said: "We welcome the extra funds for people in B&Bs and we feel it's the right direction, although there's a long way to go."
Source
Housing Today
No comments yet