Review into how Liverpool homeless are housed after £13m hotel spend

Critics have hit out at the council for using third parties to book the rooms

A council is reviewing how it finds emergency housing for homeless people, after revealing it spent nearly £13m on hotel rooms last year.

Liverpool City Council said options which were less expensive and more "person-centred" were being explored.

A Freedom of Information request found the cost of hotel rooms for the homeless had risen from about £950,000 in 2019-2020 to £12.7m last year.

Critics have hit out at the council for using third parties to book the rooms.

Housing solicitor Siobhan Taylor-Ward from the Vauxhall Law Centre criticised the way the council used commercial booking site, Click Travel, to source emergency housing for people who had been evicted from their homes.

She said market forces meant vulnerable families were essentially competing with holiday makers and hen parties when it came to finding a place to stay in the city.

The cost of procuring homeless accommodation in Liverpool in the current financial year is expected to rise above £19m according to a council report last month.

Housing solicitor Siobhan Taylor-Ward said busy periods made the search harder

Ms Taylor-Ward said: "The housing officer is having to search online using an app to find suitable accommodation, and that's subject to market forces.

"So when we are in periods like Aintree races or Christmas, any busy period for tourists, then it's a lot more difficult for them to find anywhere."

This also meant homeless people were sent outside the city, particularly during the Eurovision song contest when Liverpool's hotel rooms were in high demand, she added.

The freedom of information request by BBC Radio Merseyside found 560 people were housed outside Liverpool in the year 2022-23.

Ms Taylor-Ward said: "There's no direct route into temporary accommodation.

"You're waiting for your housing officer to search online for a hotel for you, that's a really stressful situation especially for families with children."

'Upsetting'

A recent council report said 250 households with children were living in bed and breakfast accommodation.

Nicola, a mother of two teenagers, is facing eviction from her home in West Derby, where she has lived for almost 20 years.

Her landlord is selling the property and Nicola, who works part-time, expects to be evicted after Christmas.

She said rising rents in the area meant she could not afford a similar property, and she had been trying to bid for social housing every week while on the council's housing list for the last four years.

"I will have to go to court, but at the end of the day it's the landlord's property and she will get it back".

Nicola said she would most likely end up in a hotel or hostel, adding: "Nothing can put into words really. It's upsetting. Every day is a fight to keep us together."

Sarah Doyle of Liverpool City Council said the council would review its use of third parties to source homes

Sarah Doyle, the council's cabinet member for housing said she had ordered a review into the use of click travel and said the council's contract with the service would not be extended beyond September.

She said the council would reintroduce face-to-face housing advice and focus more on preventing tenants becoming homeless in the first place.

Working with land lords directly to secure short-term placements would be more cost-effective than hotels, and end the uncertainty of vulnerable people being at the mercy of an online search for a room, she added.