This report shines a light on the predicament facing single homeless adults, who often struggle to access mainstream housing options and so end up cycling in and out of low-quality temporary accommodation, which has impacts on their health and creates future costs for local services.

Too many single homeless households do not get full state support to find a permanent place to live. The absence of housing options during times of personal crisis means that many single homeless adults are driven towards the most dreadful corners of the English housing market, forced to live in bed-and-breakfast accommodation, private hostels and short-stay houses in multiple occupation (known collectively as ‘unsupported temporary accommodation’). The physical and social conditions in these dwellings are often appalling. There is limited statutory control over who is placed or directed to the accommodation, and enforcement activity on the conditions of dwellings and quality of the management is often found wanting.