Close to 105,000 households were living in temporary accommodation — such as a hostel or a room in a shared house — in the first quarter of 2023, up 10% from the same period last year, and the highest number since the government started keeping records 25 years ago, the UK housing department said Tuesday. Local authorities in England have a duty to provide accommodation for households that have become “unintentionally homeless.
Rents have also been rising as demand surges because many more people can’t afford to buy. Households across the UK have been struggling to keep up with soaring rents and mortgages, on top of painful increases in the cost of food and energy over the past year. Consumer price inflation in the UK stood at 7.9% in June — that is down slightly from 8.7% in May but still the highest level in the Group of Seven, which includes most of the world’s biggest economies.