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Homelessness: Immigration

Answer

The information requested is as follows.Statutory homelessnessInformation about local authorities' actions under homelessness legislation is collected quarterly at local authority level. This information includes the number of households accepted by local authorities as eligible for assistance, unintentionally homeless and in priority need, and therefore owed a main homelessness duty. The duty owed to an accepted household is to secure suitable accommodation. If a settled home is not immediately available, the authority may secure temporary accommodation until a settled home becomes available.(i) A8 nationalsInformation about decisions taken under the homelessness legislation for A8 (and more recently A2) headed households is published quarterly, on CLG's Housing Statistics website in ““Live Tables””.Table 629 contains data on A8 households accepted as owed a main homelessness duty, including the reason for eligibility, from May 2004 onwards:"http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/housing/xls/1141674"Data for 2007 show that 425 A8-headed households were accepted as being owed the main homelessness duty, comprising 0.7 per cent. of the total acceptances over the same period. The quality of A8 foreign national data submitted is improving, and we are working with local authorities to continue this improvement.(ii) Non-EU nationalsWe are also working with local authorities to obtain better information on numbers of homelessness decisions and acceptances for other, non-EU foreign nationals on the P1E statutory homelessness form. These figures will be published as soon we are satisfied that both the response rate and quality of the data reported is sufficiently robust.Rough sleepingLocal authorities who conduct rough sleeper counts collect information on any individuals sleeping rough, and these are published annually on our website. These figures include those from EU accession states and other countries, but a breakdown of nationality is not provided.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

474 c1899-900W; 199851

Session

2007-08

Subjects

Migrants Homelessness

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk