Waltham Forest Town Hall. Credit: LDRS
Waltham Forest Council hopes to tackle rising homelessness in the borough amid a “housing crisis,” but challenges persist.
(Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Sebastian Mann)
Top councillors have warned the borough is facing a “severe housing crisis”. More than 8,000 are on the housing register, awaiting a home from the council.
The most common causes of homelessness in London are sudden rent hikes, a lack of social housing, and personal setbacks such as drug addiction.
Waltham Forest says it needs to help those living in temporary housing move to “long-term homes” by investing in new developments. A wider variety of accommodation is also needed, with the council facing a shortfall of 250 specialist homes.
Many authorities have pushed for more housing to be built, and new developments across north-east London are rarely turned down by planning committees.
In September, the council greenlit a plan to use the London Walthamstow Hotel in Lea Bridge Road to support up to 221 households. It had previously been housing asylum seekers.
Waltham Forest has also produced a draft Local Plan, which lays out the need for 27,000 new homes in the borough by 2035.
The draft plan earmarks parcels of land across the borough that could be suitable for housing. If adopted, it could be used to approve tower blocks up to 30 storeys tall.
House prices in Waltham Forest have increased by 118% in the last ten years, which was the most significant growth in the UK.
The town hall will also work to improve its “early prevention” measures, which it says is “far more cost-effective,” to help residents avoid ending up homelessness.
A new team of ‘tenants’ right officers’ has been launched and the council says it will be “proactive” in identifying at-risk families. However, officers say they will need to rely on volunteers and the community help sector and “cannot tackle this challenge alone”.
Councils must act when someone will be homeless within 56 days and are required to help them find new accommodation.
NHS North East London (NEL), which is responsible for health care in the borough, has laid out a roadmap to improve healthcare for homeless people in Waltham Forest over the next five years.
It hopes to launch a targeted GP service in 2025 and officers will look into commissioning specialist accommodation for at-risk residents. Other self-defined ‘priorities’ include working with GPs and drug services on outreach programmes and “identifying gaps” in the current healthcare model.
An officer from the ICB wrote the situation with homelessness would “require solutions that are as complex as the challenges”.
A major issue facing the NHS is that some 23% of homeless people are not registered with a GP and often suffer from undiagnosed and untreated chronic conditions. As a result, the average age of death for women is 43 and 45 for women.
NEL is an integrated care board (ICB) that oversees NHS services in eight boroughs: Waltham Forest, Redbridge, Havering, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Barking & Dagenham, Hackney and the City of London.
There were around 186 rough sleepers in Waltham Forest in 2022/23, as per the latest data from the Combined Homelessness and Information Network (CHAIN).
The highest volume was in Newham, where 503 people were sleeping rough. Havering was the only borough to record fewer than 100, with 79 identified.
According to data published by the ICB, homeless people are 34 times more likely to have tuberculosis and 50 times more likely to have hepatitis-C. They are also five times as likely to be asthmatic and twelve times as likely to suffer from epilepsy.
The strategy also covers people living in temporary accommodation, who are owed a duty by their local council as they would otherwise be homeless.
Waltham Forest was the only borough where fewer than 1,000 people were living in temporary accommodation. There was a total of 17,582 identified by CHAIN in 2022/23, with almost 20% living in Hackney.
A fifth of people living in temporary accommodation, typically hotels or bed-and-breakfast-style flats, across the UK are concentrated in north-east London.
Putting them up comes at a great cost to councils, and many across the capital are struggling to balance their spending as a result.
