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One year after the Homelessness Reduction Act came into force, the crisis still seems to be getting worse. So what impact is the act having? asks David Bogle
Another week, another plethora of reports and news items on homelessness.
Rough sleeping is up by 18% in London, with 8,855 people now sleeping on the capital’s streets; tented camps of homeless people are being forcibly removed; there have been calls for the repeal of the Vagrancy Act; and rock group Metallica donated £40,000 to a Manchester homelessness charity.
Each week, the number of families in emergency bed and breakfast accommodation continues to rise.
Few would argue that there is no major homelessness crisis in many parts of the country.
Meanwhile, it is more than a year since the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 came into force. Described as the biggest change in homelessness legislation in 40 years, it assigned local authorities with new duties to prevent and relieve homelessness.
So has the act been effective? This is a subject that will be explored in one of the sessions at the Housing 2019 conference in Manchester.
But looking at the overall statistics for homelessness, the act doesn’t seem to have improved outcomes.
The Homes for Cathy group of housing associations is keen to work with local authorities to help them with their statutory duties regarding homelessness. We have certainly noticed more activity by councils to tackle homelessness, some of it linked to the act, some to other government rough sleeping and homelessness initiatives driven by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
Councils are consulting housing associations about their rough sleeping strategies and linking these discussions to reviews of their homelessness and allocations policies.
“The number of people placed in temporary and emergency accommodation has increased, as has the length of stays in temporary and emergency accommodation”
The Local Government Association has reported that as a result of the act, homelessness presentations have increased considerably (more than 75%). Meanwhile, the number of people placed in temporary and emergency accommodation has increased, as has the length of stays in temporary and emergency accommodation. None of this is good news for homeless people or councils with severely limited resources.
Housing associations have adopted a ‘voluntary’ duty to refer, mirroring the statutory duties of public bodies. But most housing associations would have had protocols in place to refer likely homelessness cases to local authorities already.
At Hightown, we have noticed a more sophisticated use of Discretionary Housing Payments, homelessness prevention funds and credit union loans by local authorities to prevent homelessness, as well as a better understanding of the need for certain pre-tenancy requirements to ensure that tenancies will be sustainable.
But for housing associations working across several local authorities, there is, perhaps inevitably, a lack of consistency in policy and procedure.
Pleasingly, the past year has seen more housing associations benchmarking and reviewing their practices against the nine Homes for Cathy commitments. Boards and senior staff, keen to ensure that associations provide demonstrable social impact, have been scrutinising their policies on homelessness.
Local authorities should be seeing housing associations less likely to adopt blanket and inflexible practices on homelessness nominations and eligibility, taking positive steps to ensure new tenancies can be sustained and putting resources in to preventing evictions into homelessness.
“The past year has shown that we are not going to end the homelessness crisis through legislation alone. We need additional resources to make a real impact”
Working with Crisis, the National Housing Federation and others, the Homes for Cathy group is exploring the potential for housing associations to measure their improved performance on homelessness through indicators such as homelessness acceptances into new and existing homes, successful tenancy sustainment, and contributions to ending rough sleeping and migrant homelessness.
The past year has shown that we are not going to end the homelessness crisis through legislation alone. We need additional resources to make a real impact and to provide homes and services that solve the problems that cause homelessness.
But we also need leadership, impetus and commitment from housing associations working with local authorities, the government, and homelessness charities and agencies. That is what the Homes for Cathy group of housing associations is offering.
David Bogle, chief executive, Hightown Housing Association
Mr Bogle is speaking about the first year of the Homelessness Reduction Act on a panel at the Housing 2019 conference, at 12pm on Thursday 27 June, in Charter One
The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 came into force in England on 3 April 2018.
The key measures:
The Homes for Cathy group of housing associations, working with housing charity Crisis, is asking its members to sign up to nine commitments to tackle homelessness:
They are:
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