Islington, London’s second-smallest borough has seen spending on homelessness skyrocket in the space of a year, following a huge spike in demand for temporary accommodation.
By Josef Steen, Local Democracy Reporter
Islington, London’s second-smallest borough has seen spending on homelessness skyrocket in the space of a year, following a huge spike in demand for temporary accommodation.
A Freedom of Information (FOI) request sent by the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) to Islington Council revealed the borough’s homelessness budget soared from £5m to £15m between April 2024 and April 2025, during which the number of households in temporary accommodation (TA) reached a high of 1,778.
The same data showed the borough’s overall spending on prevention had increased by more than six fold in three years, from £1.8m in 2022/23 to £11.6m by April 2025.
However, Islington’s chief housing officer last week said the borough’s efforts, while expensive, had helped it “stem the tide” of the wave of applications for TA – the sixth-highest in London.
On Tuesday (11 November) Director of Housing Operations Ian Swift told councillors the borough should be “proud” of its preventative work, which had resulted in lower levels of homelessness and households in TA than many other London boroughs. Those who were in temporary housing were also spending less time there compared to the London average, he said.
London’s ‘dramatic and real’ homelessness crisis
Swift added the numbers were “still going up in the wrong direction”, while government statistics also showed Islington families in TA who have children were spending longer there on average compared to all other types of household in the borough.
Last week, a new report from the charity Crisis showed that London has become seven times more reliant on temporary housing than it was in 2020, amid a 35% rise in homelessness across the city since 2020.
However, the same week, further research from the Combined Homelessness and Information Network (CHAIN) found the capital had this year seen rough sleeping drop for the first time in three years.
Mr Swift noted that as an overall percentage of its budget, Islington still spends less than several other authorities on homelessness. The Town Hall shelled out 1.8 per cent of its overall budget, compared to other inner London boroughs like Newham, which spends roughly 3%. Data from the charity Trust for London shows 5.6% of Newham households are in temporary accommodation, compared with 1.7% in Islington.
But Islington does send more households to be housed by other local authorities than the London average, of which 90% stay in the city.
The housing director also warned of the knock-on-effects of the “dramatic and real” crisis facing the capital: “Homelessness and the lack of affordability doesn’t just affect housing: it affects children’s and adult’s social care.”
‘We are working tirelessly’
Speaking to the LDRS, Councillor John Woolf, Executive Member for Homes and Neighbourhoods, said: “In Islington, we’re determined to ensure that everyone has a safe, decent place to call home.
“We work tirelessly to house those most in need. This is more challenging than ever before as we’ve seen a significant increase in the number of people experiencing homelessness at a time when our resources are stretched to the limit. We’re proud of our efforts to eliminate rough sleeping, and Islington has one of the lowest numbers of people sleeping rough in the country,” he said.
In 2024, the council was awarded £8.1m to fund rough sleeping and other important homelessness services, the fifth largest amount for any council in England. The LDRS previously reported that between 2023 and 2024, the number of people sleeping rough on Islington’s streets doubled from 85 to 162.
Cllr Woolf added that Islington is set to receive £750k from the government’s recently-announced £84m uplift fund for homelessness and rough sleeping.
According to the Office for National Statistics, Islington is home to 223,024 people, its population having grown by 0.5% in the last five years. After Tower Hamlets, the borough comes second for population density in all of England and Wales.
