As many as 50 homeless families are being put up in hotels every night in Bolton as the borough faces “unprecedented pressure.” They are amongst around 250 families estimated to be in temporary accommodation at any one time in the borough. Dave Bagley MBE, who runs the Urban Outreach charity, says people across Bolton have found getting access to housing difficult in recent times.
He said: “It a housing crisis at the moment, and the lack of investment has been extreme for far too many years. He added: “We certainly welcome the 1.5M homes being built in the next parliament, we know that will be difficult, but we certainly welcome it.
” Benjamin Court on Slater Street includes homeless families unit (Image: Google Maps) Mr Bagley said that he hoped that the new government would focus on ways of preventing people from becoming homeless in the first place, as a way of tackling the crisis. He drew parallels with public health and the response to the Covid pandemic, where he argued the government had not focused strongly enough on preventing poor health. Mr Bagley said: “A lot of the money given out by the government has been about intervention, but really not enough has been about prevention.
“But we’re very hopeful that in an era of change there will be more focus on preventative measures.” He added: “It’s not just about the costs of homelessness, it's about the human cost.” This comes with many of Bolton’s homeless accommodation agreements up for renewal.