Homelessness Trends in Solihull

Homelessness is an important issue in Solihull. Homelessness in Solihull reflects the shortage of affordable housing but has other causes too, such as non-violent relationship breakdown and domestic violence.

The Council has a Homelessness Strategy that covers the period to 2011 and this goes into more detail on the causes of homelessness in Solihull and what the Council is doing with its partners to tackle the problem. 

For Information on how to access the Council's Homelessness services, and what homelessness means, look at the homelessness help and advice section .

All local authorities in England are required to provide a statistical return to Central Government every three months.You can access this data here: Homelessness data for other local authorities, regions and England

Solihull has historically had a comparatively high rate of homelessness 'acceptances' (those for whom the Council has a statutory duty to make an offer of permanent accommodation) compared to other Councils. However, homelessness prevention work is helping to reduce the number of homelessness applications and 'acceptances' have been reducing since 2003/04. For the year April 2008 - March 2009 homelessness acceptances amounted to 263, a 7% reduction on the 283 acceptances in the previous year and a 68% reduction when compared to the 820 cases in 2003/2004.

This positive trend has seen Solihull's position on homelessness improving relative to other Council areas. The table below uses official data and shows homelessness acceptance rates per 1,000 households (this is the way the Government compares councils performance). This shows that until 2006/07 there were higher homelessness acceptances in Solihull when compared to the West Midlands region and to England. Homelessness acceptance reductions have been greater in Solihull so that Solihull's rate is now below the regional average. The rate remains higher than for England as a whole although the gap is becoming smaller.

Homelessness Rates Per 1,000 Households