North Yorkshire Council has announced plans to increase its housing stock to tackle rising homelessness, yet it simultaneously faces a significant knowledge gap, admitting it does not know how many empty properties exist across the county.
The council says it is actively working to expand its temporary accommodation options to meet what one senior councillor describes as "ever-increasing demand".
Council reports show that the number of households accepted as statutorily homeless has increased, rising to 154 in the first quarter of 2025/26. This has placed "pressure on the service when looking to successfully prevent and relieve homelessness". The number of households in temporary accommodation at the end of the quarter stood at 261.
Councillor Simon Myers, the council's Executive Member for Culture, Arts and Housing, says the efforts to acquire more temporary homes are being supplemented by expanded use of bed and breakfast accommodation.
"In terms of our ability to meet the ever increasing demand, we have committed funding to increase our temporary accommodation stock. We've been buying units of temporary accommodation most recently in Scarborough and in Norton.
We also, I think, are doing a better job at finding good quality affordable bed and breakfast establishments that will work well with us.
It's not our preferred method of addressing issues. It's a very expensive way of meeting the demand. But sometimes one needs that capacity".
Looking ahead, Councillor Myers revealed ambitious plans for more specialised housing, particularly in the Scarborough area, to support long-term rough sleepers with complex needs. He believes a new "place of change" could be a game-changer for individuals who are repeatedly homeless.
"We also have ambitions to build more supported housing and to develop a new place of change for long-term rough sleepers in the Scarborough area which we hope will be transformational because the worst thing is the people who are repeatedly homeless.
And so we have to try and address some of the long standing issues with some individuals with complex needs and see that we set them on the right path to to not becoming homeless or rough sleeping again".
However, as the council invests in new housing, it is also launching a major project to understand the scale of empty homes in the region—a figure it currently cannot provide.
Councillor David Chance, Chair of the Scarborough and Whitby Area Committee, explained the situation.
"We are still in the process of aligning ways of working across the previous boroughs and districts to provide a consistent approach across North Yorkshire.
We've begun a piece of work to establish the current landscape of empty properties across North Yorkshire and looking at how they were dealt with historically in each area.
This piece of work will help us to establish how we work consistently across the county moving forward.
As part of this, we're looking into how many empty homes there are across the county.
We anticipate that this will take around 6 months".
This initiative comes as the council's own data highlights ongoing challenges, with the number of households assessed as threatened with homelessness and as actually homeless remaining relatively stable but at high levels over the past year.
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