Preventing homelessness: a Section 11 pilot project
Cost benefits
The most recent evaluation and investigation into the financial costs of eviction from the Dundee Families Project (Scottish Executive Publications, 2006) report showed those costs to be estimated at around £10700 per household. This figure includes cost to housing provider, cost to homelessness services, cost to social work services and legal costs.
The Housing Corporation, the national Government agency that funds new affordable housing and regulates housing associations in England, puts the cost of one eviction being in the range from about £3000 to £10000 or more in more difficult cases. The Social Exclusion Unit in England states that the cost to evict one tenant to a local authority can be around £2000.
Therefore the Prevention of Homelessness Project is reducing, and has the potential to, significantly reduce further, costs to housing associations and the public purse and alleviate the trauma that people undergo when faced with eviction or repossession.
