Worthing Borough Council says pressure meeting a ‘continuing housing crisis’ in the area means it is facing a £2.1m budget deficit this year, forcing it to ask the Government for emergency financial support.
It says it now expects to spend £5.36m of its £17.8m budget this year on providing temporary or emergency accommodation for families and others facing homelessness in the West Sussex authority.
This cost is ‘despite us having saved money by building our own temporary accommodation’ and securing long term deals with landlords to prevent families being housed in ‘more costly and less suitable hotels and B&Bs’, said the local authority.
Between April and October, the council supported 335 households facing homelessness. At the start of the financial year, Worthing already had the second highest number of households living in temporary accommodation in West Sussex, the council added.
Council figures show escalating need for support over the same period in previous years. During the same six months last year it supported 329 households and the year before the figure was 261.
Rising demand for homelessness support and the escalating cost of supporting vulnerable people placed by other agencies in the coastal town has prompted an approach to the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government to request further exceptional financial support so it can balance its books.
It has also advised Government officials that unless the borough benefits from the Government’s fair funding review, ‘we expect to need additional support in 2026/27 as well’.
The council receives an average of £1,175 from the government to provide support to each homeless household, however the average across West Sussex is £4,917.
The impact of homelessness on the council’s budget is to be discussed by councillors at a meeting of Adur and Worthing Councils joint strategic committee tonight.
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