Making the move

Forced out of area moves are on the increase and they are not just happening in London.

The Oxford Times reports this week on cases of people being offered homes as far away in Cardiff, Cheltenham and Birmingham. The council blames the cuts in housing benefit and the benefit cap that make it impossible to find affordable private rented accommodation but a local solicitor has accused it of dumping people outside the area.

Elysha Britnell, a 22 year old mother of two children, was told she would have to move out of her temporary accommodation in Oxford and accept a home in Birmingham. She says she has no family and friends outside Oxford and has never lived anywhere else and is appealing against the decision:

‘I’m Oxford born and bred. If this appeal fails I’ll be completely homeless. I have got nowhere else to go. Even if I go to Birmingham, I may as well be homeless, because I have nobody there.’

Her solicitor John McNulty blames the changes to the discharge of the homelessness duty introduced under the Localism Act:

‘There was a change in the law which now lets councils dump people. Now they can find people out-of-area placements and just discharge their duty to these people.’  

He explains more of the background in an earlier piece for the Oxford Mail.

Scott Seamons, Oxford City Council’s board member for housing, blamed the cap on housing benefit, told the Oxford Times:

‘Due to cuts in the local housing allowance, it’s become increasingly difficult to place people with private landlords in Oxford. There’s too much choice for landlords, so they’re refusing people on benefits. Our first choice is absolutely to keep people in Oxford. I don’t want to see people being pushed out of the city. We’re doing what we can to build new houses. It’s the only way we’re really going to be able to make a difference.’

Whatever the rights and wrongs of this particular case, stories like this have become depressingly familiar in the wake of the Localism Act and the Welfare Reform Act but this is the first I’ve seen outside London. However, it is perhaps not so surprising that it should be happening in Oxford when you consider that a survey last week found that is the least affordable city in the country.

Within London, it was the furore over Newham’s plans to export its homeless families to Stoke-on-Trent that made all the headlines two years ago. However, even at the time it was only one of many boroughs looking outside the capital.

The benefit cap introduced last year has made things even worse.  Amelia Gentleman reported for The Guardian last week on families priced first out of inner London and now facing having to move out of the capital altogether as a result of the benefit cap. Birmingham, Manchester and Grimsby were mentioned as possible destinations.

There are two separate but connected housing issues involved here. The Newham story involved the location of temporary accommodation to people accepted as homeless. The later stories involve the location of private rented accommodation offered as a permanent discharge of the homelessness duty.

On the first issue, as Inside Housing reported recently, the latest government stats show that almost 12,000 families were placed ‘out of borough’ in another local authority area last year. Boroughs have even been gazumping each other to secure the temporary accommodation that is available.

As the graph below shows, that number of households in temporary accommodation outside their local authority district has doubled since the election. The total of 11,860 families outside their area at the end of 2013 represented one in five of all those in temporary accommodation.

The graph also shows a dip in the number following the introduction of the discharge power in November 2012. However, the number has increased by 32 per cent increase in the year since.

Whatever the reasons for this, at least we know the numbers involved. On the second issue, it’s also possible to get the stats on permanent discharges of the homelessness duty.

In theory, they have to take account of the suitability of the location of the new home and avoid disruption to schooling, employment, medical care and support.

The impact on people who have moved area was illustrated in a report on formerly homeless families in the private rented sector published last month by Shelter and Crisis: there were major impacts on schooling and on support that people received from family and friends. In some cases people were so unhappy they tried to move back to their original area, in others they struggled to find a new school place and in one a mother had still not been able to place her child in school 19 months after she moved.

In practice, while ministers publicly disapproved of out of area placements, one of its own advisors was telling councils how to sidestep the safeguards. The DCLG then denied he was an advisor.

Whatever the truth of that, while austerity and the Welfare Reform Act pile the pressure on councils and claimants, the Localism Act has introduced new flexibilities for those that want to use them. Hammersmith & Fulham has, for example, excluded homeless people from its housing list and its policy has so far survived legal challenge.

It’s also hard to assess how many people have been forced to move from their home area by housing benefit cuts – although in 2012 local housing allowance stats were suggesting significant movement from inner to outer London. 

What does seem clear though is that the problem is growing – and that now it is spreading outside London.