BACK in 2014, Enfield council set up a project named Housing Gateway in order to reduce the costs of temporary accommodations for the homeless.
Families were instead placed in to the Housing Gateway homes instead of expensive accommodation, in a bid to reduce the costs to the local authority. The house bought under this system also housed for people with learning disabilities and many of them redeveloped in attempts to have more rooms available in them.
This has project has led to a saving of £2.5 million and to date a total of 418 homes have been bought the council expect the 500th property is due to be bought in June 2019.
Enfield Council’s Cabinet Member for Finance and Efficiency, Cllr Dino Lemonides, said: “Our temporary accommodation costs were simply not sustainable in 2014 and we clearly needed to do something about it…”
“We are committed to building strong communities and that means getting people into good quality homes that they can call home and get settled before moving into a longer term stable tenancy.”