A council is offering to support homeless households by suggesting they consider moving out of the area to find more affordable housing.

Cherwell District Council highlighted their success in preventing homelessness in a performance report covering May 2022.

Cherwell District Council’s portfolio holder for corporate services Richard Mould read out an extract on the prevention work being done by the council’s housing team at this week’s executive meeting.

But the councillor did not include the section which suggests that homeless households should consider leaving the district, which suffers from “long waiting times” for social housing and “unaffordable” private rents.

Read more: Mental health charity hosts festival to thank supporters

Mr Mould said: “the housing team continues to focus on trying to reach households before they reach crisis and actually become homeless.

“There has been a campaign to ensure clients, and those supporting them, are given up-to-date and realistic information on the housing challenges in Cherwell so they can fully explore all options prior to imposing statutory homeless duties.”

The section of the report which followed read: “The housing team have been looking at areas outside Cherwell where accommodation is available and affordable, offering to support homeless households to consider moving as a solution to securing long term settled housing.

“Given the long waiting times for social housing in this area and unaffordability of any private rented housing.”

Cherwell District Council monitors 17 performance indicators on a monthly basis.

Homelessness prevention, included under the strategic priority of “housing that meets your needs”, was described as “slightly behind schedule” for the year.

The number of homeless households in temporary accommodation remains within target, but the report warns that there are expected to be increased problems with housing in the coming months.

The report continued: “There are some very concerning cases where it appears homelessness is not going to be avoided.

“Families with particular needs are likely to present over the next few months, requiring intensive work to find a long-term housing solution.

“The trend is still likely to be an increase in the need for temporary accommodation into the summer months.”

The average time taken to process new housing benefit claims was marked as a red alert within the report.

It being 10 per cent behind target.

The council stated that each claim should be dealt with within 18 days, but the current average is 20.

Mr Mould said: “Following on from the increased number of claims received in March and April, we are still seeing the impact of those claims.

“Resource is focused on this area to deal with the additional work, and we are continuing to monitor this work area closely.”

 

Read more from this author

This story was written by Matthew Norman, he joined the team in 2022 as a Facebook community reporter.

Matthew covers Bicester and focuses on finding stories from diverse communities.

Get in touch with him by emailing: Matthew.norman@newsquest.co.uk

Follow him on Twitter: @OxMailMattN1

A message from our Editor

Thank you for reading this story and supporting the Oxford Mail.

If you like what we do please consider getting a subscription for the Oxford Mail and in return we’ll give you unrestricted access with less adverts across our website from the latest news, investigations, features, and sport.

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tik Tok for more. 

You can also join the conversation in our Facebook groups: stay ahead of traffic alerts here, keep up to date with the latest from court here, share your favourite memories of Oxford here, get your daily dose of celebrity news here and take some time out with news that will make you smile. 

If you’ve got a story for our reporters, send us your news here. You can also list an event for free here.