The Housing Assurance Board met on Monday 09 March 2026 to discuss the borough's homelessness and housing needs, receiving an overview of the current situation, national strategies, and service performance. Key discussions focused on demand management, temporary accommodation, and customer experience, with a particular emphasis on improving services and addressing the significant pressures faced by Croydon.

Homelessness and Housing Needs Overview

The meeting began with an overview of Croydon's homelessness services and housing needs, highlighting the acute pressure the borough is under. Beatrice Cingtho-Taylor, Director of Housing – Homelessness Prevention & Accommodation, presented a stark picture of increasing demand, with over 400 new homelessness applications each month, leading to a peak of 3,600 households in temporary accommodation in Spring 2025. This reflects a national trend intensified by London's housing market, characterised by high demand and costs. The borough faces challenges with affordability in the private rented sector, a shortage of social and affordable housing, and limited capacity for moving households from temporary to settled accommodation. The report also detailed the significant rise in the private rented sector (PRS), now comprising 31% of dwellings, with a high proportion of older properties at risk of disrepair and damp. PRS households in Croydon experience significantly higher rates of overcrowding and damp compared to national averages. Cabinet is due to decide on a Selective Licensing Scheme and additional HMO licensing on 24th March.

Homelessness & Rough Sleeping Strategy: A National Plan to End Homelessness

A briefing was provided on the UK Government's A National Plan to End Homelessness, published in December 2025. This cross-government strategy aims to make homelessness rare, brief, and non-recurring by focusing on the root causes of homelessness, such as housing and poverty, and shifting investment towards prevention. Key themes include building 1.5 million new homes, reforming the private rented sector through the Renters' Rights Act, and improving income support. The strategy also outlines medium-term changes to support councils in shifting from crisis to prevention, with a £3.4 billion investment over three years and a focus on data-led approaches and legal duties for public services to collaborate in preventing homelessness. Immediate actions include eliminating the use of B&Bs for families by the end of Parliament and increasing the supply of quality temporary accommodation. The strategy is underpinned by transformed accountability, with new national targets for prevention, relief rates, families in B&B, and long-term rough sleeping.

Homelessness Demand Management

Beatrice Cingtho-Taylor presented an update on homelessness demand management, highlighting a 50% increase in homeless applications in 2024/25, averaging 400 per month. However, for the first 10 months of 2025/26, total applications were 3,272, a 20% reduction from the previous year. New placements into temporary accommodation (TA) represented 13% of all applications, a significant improvement from the previous year's average of 25%. Actions taken include promoting self-service and 'find your own' housing options, implementing an 'appointment only' service for homeless assistance, and visiting households where family exclusion is the cause of presentation to prevent homelessness through mediation. The council is also actively working with private landlords to reduce evictions through initiatives like 'call before you serve'. The Housing General Fund Budget for 2026-27 includes an £8.964m Homelessness, Rough Sleeping and Domestic Abuse Grant.

Temporary Accommodation

An update on temporary accommodation was provided, noting that 70% of households are within Croydon and 30% are located outside the borough. The trend showed an increase in TA month-on-month until February 2025, when a gradual reduction began, accelerated by the implementation of a stabilisation plan. This plan includes strategies such as the Homelessness & Rough Sleeping Strategy, Housing Allocation Policy, and Placements Policy, which have resulted in a 10% reduction in households in temporary accommodation from 3,665 at the end of March 2025 to 3,287 at the end of January 2026. Challenges include poor standards among some private sector landlords, an unmanaged portfolio of temporary stock, and the overuse of commercial hotels and shared facilities. Actions taken include developing an Approved Landlord Scheme, carrying out occupancy checks on over 3,200 properties, ending the use of commercial hotels and shared facilities for over six weeks, and procuring quality accommodation. The report also detailed out-of-borough placements into and out of Croydon for 2024/25. Risks and emerging issues include volatile demand and high nightly paid costs, legal challenge and JR risk, workforce capacity pressures, supply constraints, and sustained placements by other boroughs into Croydon.

Customer Experience

Beatrice Cingtho-Taylor presented an update on the customer experience of homelessness services. Challenges included a lack of direct customer contact, long waiting times for appointments (over six months), poor telephone response times, and unsatisfactory customer experiences, leading to an adversarial relationship with partners. Actions taken include implementing a new service operating model from September 2023 with realigned staffing resources for face-to-face services, reducing appointment waiting times to around two weeks, and improving telephone response times. An ongoing training programme for staff covers customer care, soft skills, legal knowledge, and personal effectiveness. Relationships with voluntary and statutory sectors have improved through quarterly Homelessness Forums and ongoing dialogue. The service operates an appointment-only access model, with emergency appointment capacity to ensure immediate access for households at risk. The data shows high engagement with scheduled appointments and proportionate use of emergency slots. The telephone call handling service changed in August 2025, with the Contact Centre resolving approximately 66% of calls, significantly improving call waiting times. Homelessness and Housing Needs complaints are often complex, with vulnerable complainants, leading to longer investigation times. Recruiting staff with the required skills is challenging, impacting the ability to improve the service. An improvement plan has identified training needs, particularly in record-keeping, which has affected complaint management. An increase in complaints is also fuelled by a rise in the use of artificial intelligence. The annual review letter from the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) confirmed compliance with all orders, although some were not completed within agreed timescales. Management of Stage 2 casework will shortly transfer to the Housing Service, and recruitment for additional Complaints Officers with expertise in housing needs issues is planned.

Forward Plan

The Board received and considered the Forward Plan, outlining deep dive items for the next two meetings. The Chair suggested future topics to include the Rent Standard, rent convergence, Ofgem regulation of heat networks, and HR issues.

The meeting concluded with thanks to the attendees and officers for their contributions.