A GWENT council is grappling with a housing crisis similar to that faced by Britain at the end of World War Two, a senior councillor has warned. 

Demand for housing in Monmouthshire, and a lack of affordable homes, has forced families into temporary accommodation such as hotels and bed and breakfasts, and is expected to cost the council £1.865 million in the current 2023/24 financial year. 

A shortfall in funding from both the Welsh Government and UK Government, which provides housing benefit payments and local housing allowance, means the county council is having to make up the difference for those who are homeless and in temporary accommodation. 

The council’s Labour cabinet has agreed a rapid rehousing plan, to cover the period through to 2027, which is required by the Welsh Government and is intended to set out how the authority will aim to prevent homelessness and ensure it is “rare, brief and unrepeated” for those who do find themselves without a home. 

Caldicot Castle councillor Rachel Garrick, the cabinet member responsible for finance, said part of the additional costs for the council is that people are having to stay longer in temporary accommodation than the period housing benefit is intended to cover. 

Leader Mary Ann Brocklesby said this is similar to the post-war years, when Britain built thousands of prefabricated homes as a temporary solution to replace those lost in the conflict and house a burgeoning population. 

The Llanelly Hill councillor said: “We are looking at a situation very similar to the post-war years when temporary housing put up, the prefabs, was still being used in the 1960s and 70s.” 

Cabinet member for housing Cllr Sara Burch said the council’s housing team is already “very successful” as most people who present as at risk of homelessness “do not actually become homeless”. 

But the Cantref, Abergavenny councillor said the council currently has 328 homeless applicants and 87 households housed in bed and breakfasts with an average wait of eight and a half months to move on. 

Leader Cllr Brocklesby said before the pandemic it would be “unthinkable” for Monmouthshire to have 300 homeless applicants, and housing manager Ian Bakewell said before 2020 the council would typically have around 10 people at a time in B&Bs and they would normally stay for only around a week. 

The plan intends to increase the amount of “good quality, self contained” accommodation available so the council can reduce the use of B&Bs which Cllr Burch described as “entirely unsatisfactory for most residents” though she acknowledged providers had “stepped into the breach” during the pandemic. 

The councillor said she wanted people housed in “self-contained accommodation and for “bed and breakfasts and hotels to be full of tourists”. 

Welsh councils have been required to take a proactive approach on homelessness since the 2020 Covid outbreak when there was swift action to rehouse those sleeping rough. As a result the Welsh Government has pushed the rapid rehousing approach and for councils to accept people as homeless without conditions previously used, and still in force in England, such as whether people are “intentionally homeless”. 

The plan also recognises issues from trauma, behaviour and mental health that can lead to homelessness and is intended to ensure departments across the council, and partner bodies, work to prevent homelessness and support people into housing and to remain in their homes. 

Cllr Tudor Thomas, the cabinet member for social care, said he was particularly concerned for young people leaving care at 18 who do not have the “back up” of parents and was told the plan includes a special group to consider the needs of young people and it recognises the need for more supported housing for those under 25.