The cost of putting homeless people up in bed and breakfast accommodation increased nearly thirteenfold in Carmarthenshire in the first year of the Covid pandemic.
The county council spent £718,358 on bed and breakfast costs in 2020-21 in response to a nationwide drive to give people a roof over their head. The corresponding figure for 2019-20, before the coronavirus ran amok, was £58,288. However, the Welsh Government subsidised the 2020-21 bill with a grant of £690,287.
In the first six months of 2021-22, the council spent £228,451 on bed and breakfast accommodation and clawed £200,772 back from Cardiff Bay. The figures follow a Freedom of Information request about support for the homeless and those at risk of homelessness from the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
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The council said the longest an individual stayed in bed and breakfast, guesthouse or hotel accommodation between April 1, 2019, and September 30, 2021, was no longer than 16 months. "The circumstances and reasons for this were beyond the council’s control," it said. The longest a family stayed in such accommodation was less than one week.
There were 26 people in four bed and breakfasts venues in Carmarthenshire at the time the Freedom of Information request was submitted last autumn. During the Covid pandemic, councils across Wales have spent much more than usual providing homeless people and those at risk of homelessness with a roof over their head. Swansea Council spent £1.5 million in 2020-21, more than three times as much as the previous year. You can get more political and other story updates by subscribing to our newsletters here.
Councils usually reclaim a proportion of their homelessness accommodation costs via housing benefit, and will continue to do so. But the Welsh Government's Covid hardship fund, which has pumped money into councils, stops at the end of this month. Ministers are, though, making £10 million available in 2022-23 to local authorities for the expenditure they would have previously claimed from the hardship fund.
The Welsh Government also plans to spend £190 million on homelessness prevention and housing support in 2022-23, and a £310 million on social housing.
A Welsh Government spokeswoman said: "We have supported 17,000 people experiencing homelessness into temporary accommodation since the start of the pandemic. Our focus has now turned to prevention first and supporting local authorities and partners to support people into long-term and stable homes through our rapid rehousing approach."
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