Scheme to ease increasing pressures of temporary accommodation

A short-term scheme to use empty council homes to improve support for homeless households and ease increasing costs of temporary accommodation is being introduced in Brighton & Hove.

As a response to the acute pressures on the city’s homelessness services, some council homes that become vacant between 19 January and 1 May will be used as temporary accommodation for homeless households rather than being let to people on the city’s housing register.

According to Shelter’s 2024 analysis, 3,580 people in the city are homeless – around one in every 77 residents. Nearly 40% of the those are children in homeless households.

That has led to a significant increase in the number of households needing temporary accommodation, with 2,150 households placed in temporary accommodation at the end of November 2025.

The financial impact is significant, largely due to an increase in the need to use costly nightly-paid temporary accommodation to meet the council’s statutory duties. The number of people staying in this accommodation has risen sharply over the last few years – from 114 in 2022 to 520 by November 2025.

Improving outcomes

The aim of the interim scheme is to improve outcomes for homeless households by reducing the reliance on nightly-paid accommodation and out-of-area placements, ahead of longer-term initiatives to increase the availability of temporary accommodation in the city coming on board. These include the development and purchase of more council-owned accommodation in the city.

The focus for the accommodation will be households with children, as well as households where there will be demonstrated health or educational benefits.

We anticipate the short-term measure would make up to 80 empty homes available for temporary accommodation, and save in the region of £0.75 million over the coming year.

This will affect homes advertised for lettings from the bidding cycle beginning 29 January and will cause delays for some people currently on the housing register.

Due to the pressing financial situation, the decision to go ahead with the interim scheme has been taken by Councillor Bella Sankey, the Leader of the Council.

The interim scheme will be closely monitored and we will be consulting residents to inform a full review of the impacts of the scheme.

Taking action to tackle the housing crisis

Councillor Sankey said: “Brighton & Hove is facing a serious housing crisis with rising numbers of people experiencing homelessness, increasing levels of support needed and escalating financial pressures on the council.

“We are already taking action to increase supply and standards in temporary accommodation, which is one of the key priorities in our Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy 2025 to 2030.

“We’ve recently committed to buying 200 homes to use for this purpose, and are continuing to develop more council-owned properties in the city – including renovating a former office building transformed into modern, women-only temporary accommodation, due to open shortly.

“But in the short term we need to ease the acute pressure in the coming months, which is why we are taking this innovative step to use council homes that become vacant between now and 1 May as temporary accommodation.

“We appreciate this will mean delays for people on the council’s housing register currently waiting for a home or applying for a transfer because of the reduced availability of council homes, and we will be closely monitoring the scheme. Housing association properties and seniors housing properties are not included in this scheme and will still go to people on the housing register.

“While it will still be temporary accommodation, the scheme will provide a greater level of stability for households than some other types of temporary accommodation and the opportunity to remain within established support networks, schools and healthcare services.

“We believe this will have positive impact on mental and physical health, particularly for children and vulnerable adults.”