Housing Needs Assessment 2006 - Westminster City Council

7. Backlog of existing needThe main source of information used is Section E6: Homeless households accommodated by yourauthority at the end of the quarter. The important point about this information is the noteunderneath. “This should be a ‘snapshot’ of the numbers in accommodation on the last day of thequarter, not the numbers taking up accommodation during the quarter.” This is important given thesnapshot nature of the survey. Data compiled from the December 2005 P1(E) form is shown in thetable below.Table 7.4 Homeless households accommodated by authority at December 2005 (SectionE6, P1(E) form)Category Quarter ending 30/12/05In Westminster Elsewhere TOTALBed and breakfast* 376 376Other nightly paid* 30 30Hostel* 27 27Private sector accommodation leased by authority 910 528 1,438Private sector accommodation leased by RSLs 809 153 962Directly with a private sector landlord 178 27 205Within Council’s own stock 0 0 0RSL stock on assured shorthold tenancies 77 0 77Other 0 0 0TOTAL 2,407 708 3,115*Location not confirmedSource: Westminster Borough Council P1 (E) December 2005Not all of the categories in the above table are added to our assessment of existing and potentialhouseholds in need. This is because, in theory, they will be part of our sample for the HousingNeeds Assessment. For example, households housed in private sector accommodation shouldalready be included as part of the housing need – such household addresses should appear on theCouncil Tax file from which the sample was drawn.It is important to note, however, that as Westminster is a uniquely pressured area homelesshouseholds are often moved into accommodation outside the City. These households would not beincluded in the council tax register used to draw the survey sample. It is therefore appropriate toinclude homeless households that have been placed in private sector housing outside Westminster.After considering the various categories, we have decided there are six which should be included aspart of the homeless element. These have been underlined in the table above. Therefore, of the3,115 homeless households in temporary accommodation, 1,141 will be counted as homeless for thepurpose of the Housing Needs Assessment.PAGE 75