I AM very concerned about the growing evidence of increasing levels of poverty in our country. One of the manifestations of poverty is homelessness. The charity Shelter estimated that more than 300,000 people are homeless and housed in temporary accommodation, of which 128,000 are children. Rough sleepers total over 4,000.

That 128,000 children were homeless and housed in temporary accommodation over the holiday period is appalling. Sadly, the number is expected to rise as a result of the high cost of housing and the current freeze in housing benefit.

South Lakeland District is not immune from the national trend. We have also seen a worrying rise in the number of homelessness applications – from 61 to 167 over the past year. Indeed, over the past year 760 local people have contacted us for housing-related advice at our council offices.

But this is not the full extent of the problem. There are 3,100 families currently on the waiting list for affordable housing. Many of these families will be currently in housing that is short term, too small, or in some other way inadequate.

It is particularly upsetting that so many children may be housed inadequately, thereby impacting their life chances.

The long-term solution to these problems is to build affordable houses, particularly those for rent. In the district, we set ourselves a target of facilitating the building of 1,000 affordable houses to rent between the period 2014 and 2025.

Since January 2014, 359 affordable houses to rent have been built. With the support of the private sector, and our recently announced £6m loan fund for housing associations as well as £2.36m for Community Land Trusts, we are hopeful we can reach our target.

But in the meantime, we need to act now to help the most vulnerable.

So we are piloting new outreach sessions in Windermere and Ulverston to get help and advice to those who need alternative accommodation. In Ulverston, they will run once a month – the first one started yesterday at the town council offices next to the Coronation Hall.

But this is not all we do. Our preventative work also includes liaising with landlords to allow tenants to stay in their accommodation, helping with the payment of deposits, working with families and young people to prevent a relationship breakdown leading to homelessness and arranging talks in local schools about the harsh reality of homelessness.

This is also only one of several concerns which we as a council are acting upon. We are trying to alleviate effects of poverty on our residents in a number of ways. If you would like to know more please contact me on g.archibald@southlakeland.gov.uk

Together let’s do something about this.