Housing Needs Assessment 2006 - Westminster City Council

7. Backlog of existing need7. Backlog of existing need7.1 IntroductionThis chapter of the report assesses the first part of the ‘Basic Needs Assessment Model’ – Backlogof Existing Need. This begins with an assessment of housing suitability and affordability and alsoconsiders backlog of homeless households before arriving at a total backlog need estimate.7.2 Unsuitable housingThis section looks at households whose current accommodation is in some way unsuitable for theirrequirements. It is estimated that a total of 11,390 households are living in unsuitable housing. Thisrepresents 10.4% of all households in the City of Westminster.The figure below shows a summary of the numbers of households living in unsuitable housing(ordered by the number of households in each category). The main reason for unsuitable housing isovercrowding followed by home disrepair. All of the categories other then overcrowding arecalculated directly from a response to a survey question. Overcrowding is calculated frominformation about household composition, accommodation size and a derived minimum bedroomrequirement.PAGE 69