Oxford's emergency housing bill quadruples

The council now wants levies on student housing to go towards building affordable homes

More than £65,000 was spent by Oxford City Council putting people in emergency accommodation such as hotels in 2011.

A Freedom Of Information (FOI) request revealed that the bill for finding emergency housing was more than four times as much as it was in 2010.

There are 6,000 people on the Labour-run council's housing waiting list.

Joe McManners, cabinet member for housing, described the shortage of homes as a "crisis".

He said: "There's an increasing amount of people presenting homeless at the council - people who could no longer afford their rent because it had gone up and their housing benefit had come down.

'New developments'

"It was much more difficult to get the landlords to take people on because their rents were dropping and they weren't going to get as much money for them."

Oxford City Council's emergency housing bill was £15,362 in 2010, compared with £65,510 in 2011.

Colin Cook, responsible for development, said a levy of £140 per sq-m was being added to all new developments of student housing.

He added: "We basically want the student housing to contribute to the affordable housing provision in the city.

"It's already bringing in substantial sums of money... it's not small money."

'Out of control'

In April 2011 the government phased in reductions to housing benefit.

Rather than the amount of benefit being based on the median of rents in the area - or the "50th percentile" - it is set at the 30th percentile, meaning it is calculated on the basis of cheaper rents.

A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said the housing benefit reforms were "not designed to force people out of their homes".

He added: "They are about restoring fairness to a system which has spiralled out of control and ensuring that benefit claimants make the same choices about affordability as everyone else.

"We have given existing claimants up to nine months from the anniversary of their claim to adjust to any changes in their benefit.

"People in the most vulnerable situations will remain exempt, and those not exempt can be considered for extra help from the additional £130m being made available to local authorities to help smooth the transition of the housing benefit changes."