Agenda item

This report provides an update to Members on the impact of the Homeless Reduction since its introduction in April 2018. Members are requested to note the contents of the report.

            The Group Head of Residential Services presented her report outlining the HRA that was introduced on 3 April 2018 and was the most significant change in the last 30 years introducing new assessment, prevention and relief duties owed to people who found they were homeless or had been threatened with homelessness, irrespective of priority need or if they were deemed to have made themselves intentionally homeless.

            The legislation was now focused to prevent homelessness within a 56-day period (previously 28 days), under the new duties, local housing authorities are required to carry out an assessment and develop a personalised housing plan with any applicant. If the applicant was threatened with homelessness, a prevention duty would be owed, in that circumstance the personalised housing plan would aim to enable the applicant to stay in their current accommodation or find a new place to live. If an individual becomes or was already homeless a relief duty would become owed and the steps in their personalised housing plan would aim to assist the individual to secure suitable accommodation for a period of at least 6 months. Each stage comprises of a 56-day timeframe.

At the current time the Act had been in force for 16 months, and one of the implications of the Act to date was that the Council had seen an increase in individuals presenting themselves as homeless, and that was found to be because individuals can present as homeless or threatened with homelessness much earlier on.

            A further impact of the Act on the Council was the significant increase in the administrative work required to be completed. The redirection of resource was impeding the Council’s ability to meet the needs of applicants at risk of homelessness. However, it was explained the team had standardised a lot of the administration tasks as far as currently possible.

The Residential Services team had recently been successful with a bid to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government for funding of £120,000 over 12 months to focus on its dedicated approach to accessing the private rented sector, which would reduce the use of time spent in temporary and emergency accommodation.

Members participated in a full discussion of which the key points have been highlighted below:

§  Confirmation of details of the top reasons individuals present as homeless was 1) Household had been served notice, 2) Friend or Family eviction and 3) Relationship Breakdown.

§  Concern was raised in relation to individuals who don’t want to present as Homeless due to recovering from addiction and worrying they would be placed in a shared accommodation that would not be appropriate for a recovering addict. It was confirmed that the very best would be done to ensure that individuals would be placed in the best type of accommodation for their own needs, however it was subject to availability.

§  The financial implications of the Act raised some concern amongst the Members. Reassurance was given that there was a huge amount of work being completed in terms of prevention, in conjunction with work to increase the number of social housing properties available through S106’s and finally a dedicated approach to working with Landlords.

§  The funding cuts made by WSCC to charities such as Stone Pillow and what the impact of these cuts would be on the Arun District was of interest to Members. It was advised that at the current time the cuts have not yet been implemented and would not be until later in the year.

The Committee expressed thanks to The Group Head of Residential Services and her team for their great work and noted the report update.