Local homelessness surge costing more than 30% of Worthing's entire budget
Released: Friday, 05 December 2025
Over 30% of Worthing's entire budget for this year is forecast to have to be spent on accommodation for members of the local community who would otherwise be homeless.
We now expect to spend around £5.36m of our £17.8m budget this year on temporary and emergency accommodation for Worthing families, couples and individuals because of the continuing housing crisis in the borough.
This is despite us having saved money by building our own temporary accommodation and having secured long-term deals with landlords for properties to prevent residents needing to be put up in more costly and less suitable hotels and B&Bs.
Our housing teams have also worked hard to reduce homelessness, by helping members of the community to resolve issues so that they can stay where they are living or move into somewhere else suitable.
Reports detailing our current financial challenge and our work to set a budget for next year will be discussed by Adur & Worthing Councils' joint strategic committee next week.
They will set out how as a council for the community, we have changed the way we work over recent years to ensure we can continue to provide the services the community needs. However the sustained homelessness pressures we are facing mean we are currently forecast to be £2.115m over budget this year.
In the first six months of this financial year alone, 335 local households came to us seeking advice about homelessness because they were at risk of having nowhere to stay.
This is an increase on the 329 households who sought help about homelessness in the same period last year - which was itself a 26% increase on the 261 who needed help in the first six months of 2023/24.
In addition, other agencies are continuing to place vulnerable people with specific needs in the area, due to the comparatively lower property prices and the availability of large, suitable buildings in Worthing. Each of these vulnerable people needs support to be able to live independently but because government funding does not cover the full cost of this, we are left to meet the shortfall.
This surge in local people needing support means we have felt forced to approach the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to request further exceptional financial support to balance its books this year.
We have also advised MHCLG that unless Worthing benefits from a significant increase in financial support as part of the government's fair funding review this year, we expect to need additional support in 2026/27 as well.
At the start of this financial year, Worthing had the second-highest number of households in temporary accommodation in the county, but because of historic calculations we received an average of just £1,175 from the government per homeless household to support them. In comparison, the average across West Sussex was £4,917 per homeless household.
The joint strategic committee meeting will be held at The Shoreham Centre from 6:30pm on Tuesday 9th December 2025 and is open to the public. Residents are encouraged to come along, ask questions and share their thoughts.
To read the report for the meeting, see:
(PR25-097)
Page last updated: 10 December 2025