Housing crisis will push more councils into ‘bankruptcy’

Britain’s housing crisis threatens to push more local authorities into bankruptcy. The worst-hit councils are now spending millions of pounds a year – in some cases between a fifth and half of their total available financial resources – in an attempt to cope with the unprecedented and rapid increase in homelessness caused by rising rents and a shrinking supply of affordable properties. Smaller councils, often in affluent shire counties, are struggling to supply enough emergency homes to meet their legal duty to support homeless families. Hastings Borough Council, in East Sussex, spent £750,000 in 2019 but expects its annual bill to be £5.6m by next April. The District Councils’ Network said the government needed to act now or “many of us will go over the edge financially”. The Guardian