Majority of homeless people in Wigan kicked out by landlords in 'no fault evictions'

Landlords kicking people out of homes is the cause for 65 per cent of homeless cases in Wigan, a meeting heard.

The Health and Social Care Scrutiny Committee was told that 1,091 homelessness applications were submitted to Wigan Council in recent months - an increase of 339 compared to the same time last year. This was described as “devastating” by Coun Danny Fletcher who highlighted is as the “biggest amount we’ve had in a long time”.

Coun Fletcher told Wigan Town Hall that many in his ward of Ashton had fallen victim to Section 21 eviction notices - which do not require fault for landlords to kick people out.

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Responding to Coun Fletcher’s question as to how many homelessness applications were born out of no fault evictions, Joanne Willmott, assistant director for Adult Social Care, said: “65 per cent (709) were linked to issues in private rented tenancy, most of that is linked to no fault eviction.

“Some are from domestic abuse where they are fleeing that experience in their own home. We have a very energetic team who deal with that.

“They really try to get to grips with the lives of people suffering domestic abuse in the borough.”

A report breaking down this data explained that it is difficult to reduce demand on the team in terms of number of approaches, as there are external factors in terms of the housing/homeless crisis that are out of our control. It added that the team are “trying their best to manage the demand and providing advice/assistance as best they can”.

Ms Willmott went on to explain that the reason their social housing waiting list had risen to 13,490 (up by 1,153 from previous quarter) was