THERE is no room at the inn - that is the heartbreaking prospect facing hundreds of families needing a roof over their heads in Eastleigh.

All of the available accommodation for homeless families is full.

Eastleigh Council's housing needs survey has revealed that there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

To keep pace with demand the council needs to come up with 616 affordable homes every year up to 2011.

Head of housing services Amanda Jobling said: "This is not realistically achievable, which means that waiting lists and homelessness are likely to grow during this period."

Simon and Jenny Head, who have two young children, are typical of those families caught up in the misery of the borough's housing crisis.

Next month they will have to move out of their two-bedroom maisonette in Elm Tree Gardens which they have had on a short-term tenancy.

The 60s-built town centre complex is being bulldozed to make way for a housing development more in keeping with the 21st century.

But the Head family have no hope of being given a home in the new development.

Rocketing house prices in the Eastleigh area and sky high private rents have put those housing avenues out of reach for Simon, a 32-year-old self employed glazier, and 28-year-old Jenny.

So next month when their tenancy expires at Elm Tree Gardens they and their two children, Danielle, 2, and six-month-old Aiden, will be forced to move into bed and breakfast in either the Polygon area of Southampton or Fareham.

So desperate is their housing situation that Jenny says that she is on antidepressants.

She said: "All we will have is one room with a shared bathroom. There will be nowhere to prepare the baby's bottle or cook nutritional meals. We will even have to get rid of our furniture."

The housing crisis is not just hitting the younger generation.

Keith Lay, 53, and June Depoix, 56, are also living in Elm Tree Gardens and their short-term lease expired at the end of April. But they have no where else to go.

Mr Lay said: "We cannot afford the ridiculous deposits they are asking for private accommodation."

He believes that short-term tenants are being discriminated against.

Mr Lay said: "It was reported at various meetings and in the local press that all tenants would be rehoused during the rebuilding scheme."

The flats are owned by Eastleigh Housing Association which is part of the Atlantic Housing Group Limited.

The group's services director, Pat Shelley, said the redevelopment of the Gardens had been in the pipeline for two-and-a-half years.

He said that as properties became vacant they had two choices - to leave them empty for nearly three years until the development was ready to start or let them on a temporary basis while the project continued through the planning stage.

Mr Shelley said they decided to let tenancies on an assured shorthold basis similar to the private sector.

He said: "Each tenancy was for a minimum of six months and many people have stayed beyond that time.

"We have always undertaken to house people who have assured tenancies and to whom we have a long-term obligation."

He added: "There has been a lot of consultation through meetings and leaflet drops and some may have misunderstood the rehousing situation."