New Enfield Council report reveals a drop from around 300 to just over 100 households living in emergency accommodation over the past year

The number of homeless Enfield families housed in hotels and other emergency accommodation has fallen to a third of the level seen at the start of the year, a new report shows.

The December housing report suggests Enfield Council is finally getting a grip on the massive overspending on temporary housing seen at the civic centre since the end of 2022, when the availability of private rented accommodation began to plummet.

At the peak of the crisis locally, more than 300 local families were being housed in emergency bed and breakfast (B&B) style accommodation, often meaning cheap hotels such as Travelodges and Premier Inns, as the council struggled to meet its statutory duty of housing homeless families.

Enfield also, at one point in 2023, had the highest rate of no-fault evictions in London.

The “unprecedented pressure” forced the council to spend as much as £800,000 per month on hotel bookings, creating severe financial pressures at the civic centre. In 2023/24, overspending on temporary accommodation alone hit £18.5million.

But the latest figures now show that over the past twelve months the number of homeless families in hotels has dropped from around 300 to just above 100.

The progress is being credited to the council’s controversial new housing policy introduced in June 2023, which has seen families being offered housing in far-flung places such as Hartlepool and Durham while, from November that year, only being given one chance to accept such offers before the council would ‘discharge its duty’ to house them.

The council’s housing officer Richard Sorensen wrote in his December report: “These two factors combined had a dramatic impact as residents were not given the option of an alternative offer. As a result, there has been a sustained fall in the use of hotel accommodation.”

He added: “The reduction in hotel use has increased our ability to focus on households other than those in hotels. With the need to move households in hotels now lessening, this is enabling us to look at the wider population in temporary accommodation.”

In a separate report providing an update on the council’s finances, also published this month, Neil Goddard, the council’s head of financial strategy, explained that the tougher housing policy was having the desired effect.

Describing homelessness as “previously the single most significant pressure and risk faced by the council”, Neil wrote: “Through the homelessness action and mitigations put in place, the overspend has reduced [from £18.5m in 2023/24] to £7.3m for 2024/25 and [is] expected to further reduce to £2.8m for 2025/26.”

Further good news arrived two weeks ago when the government announced its latest funding settlement for local councils, with Enfield’s share of the Homelessness Prevention Grant increasing by more than £4m in 2025/26 – a rise of 37% on the current year.

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