Agenda item
Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy 2020-2025
This report updates the Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee on delivery to date on the objectives of the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy 2020-25. The report includes an update on the Council’s response to provide emergency accommodation to single homeless people as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the request by central government for local authorities to accommodate all rough sleepers and people at risk of sleeping rough, including people with No Recourse to Public Funds.
Minutes:
Councillor Southwood (Lead Member Housing and Welfare Reform, Brent Council) introduced the report which provided the committee with details of the past year regarding rough sleeping, the various activities undertaken and where the department were now in terms of the various ways the cohort of people who were part of the Everyone In initiative were gradually moving into more sustainable accommodation. The initiative was set up by the Government, working with local authorities. The report also updated the Committee on the homelessness and rough sleeping strategy, and Councillor Southwood noted some of what had been planned had not been possible due to the pandemic however in other ways the opportunity to bring people off the streets and offer a level of support they may not ordinarily have had was huge.
The Committee asked what impact the pandemic had on homelessness across the Borough. Councillor Southwood advised that for many residents who were at risk of homelessness, such as sofa surfers, the Everyone In strategy offered them the opportunity to go through the Council to access emergency accommodation on a temporary basis, and she felt that for a lot of those people that was a huge opportunity. For people in quite an insecure existence regarding homelessness, Councillor Southwood informed the Committee that many were now in a better situation than they would have been prior to covid. She highlighted that rough sleepers were hugely exposed to covid and the new virulent strains caused worry because for rough sleepers it was hard to self-isolate and often they would have underlying health conditions. She acknowledged that a report in the news suggested a lot of rough sleepers had since returned to the streets, but assured Committee that at the time of the meeting that return to the streets had not been seen in Brent and the overnight rough sleeping count conducting in November showed a reduction in numbers compared to the previous year. Laurence Coaker (Head of Housing Needs, Brent Council) advised Committee that the pandemic had the biggest impact on single homeless people, and that Brent now had historically low numbers of people on the streets. This had been helped by the implementation of the severe weather protocol where the homelessness service had block booked hotel rooms for single homeless people to go, whereas in previous years the Council would have relied on community winter shelters to shelter homeless people which was no longer viable due to the pandemic.
The Committee also discussed the impact of the pandemic on homeless families. Laurence Coaker advised that the main driver for homelessness was affordability and evictions from the private sector, therefore because of the eviction ban the number of families that presented as homeless reduced significantly. This was now beginning to pick up and there was worry that going forward with the economic downturn, more people out of work and the lifting of the eviction ban there would be a spike in family homelessness coming in the calendar year. Councillor Southwood explained that the Council were trying to tackle the anticipated spike by identifying anyone they thought might be in trouble to reach out and be proactive, for example those applying for Council tax support or the resident support fund, and intervening at an early stage. Laurence Coaker advised that they were gathering as much data as they could from various sources to identify families who might find themselves in this financial situation and were filling 2 posts to focus on this.
In response to a suggestion that the Council may need to buy its own land in order to reduce homelessness in the Borough, Councillor Southwood acknowledged that at some point the Council may run out of its own land and at that point would look at buying land and other options. She highlighted that that would not solve the problem on its own. The Council were currently looking at buying its own temporary accommodation and a paper had been presented to Cabinet the previous week approving the procurement of 200 self-contained rooms to provide temporary accommodation. The homelessness team kept a look out for the opportunity to buy big properties and big blocks. Councillor Mohammed Butt (Leader of the Council, Brent Council) added that they were doing all they could to ensure they sought enough properties and accommodation at appropriate sizes and were having conversations regularly with companies such as Quintain and Barclays Homes around this. In addition the Council were now looking to house key workers to attract staff into the Borough.
The Committee asked for more information on grants and funding, in relation to paragraph 6.7 of the report in particular and the delivery of 24 homes. Councillor Southwood highlighted that where there was capital funding, and the Council invested, that asset became part of the Council’s future and was a longer term sustainable option. Laurence Coaker added that the grant funding for delivery of 24 homes in paragraph 6.7 was a specific pot of money the GLA made available for capital bids and the Council were successful in securing £3m funds, with part of that bid to purchase 2 privately owned blocks of flats that would equate to 24 units of accommodation used for move on accommodation for rough sleepers coming out of supported housing. One block was on track to be completed by 31 March 2021 with appropriate support however the vendor had pulled out of the second block therefore the Council were looking for a new block.
In relation to those with no recourse to public funds, specifically non-EEA, (European Economic Area) citizens Councillor Southwood advised that their absolute priority was to encourage those 9 people to get free legal advice to regularise their immigration status. There was no obvious or easy way to support that vulnerable group of people and they were exactly the type of people the Council wanted to help. Laurence Coaker advised that, of the 9, the Council had 2 results referring people for free legal advice where the person had secured indefinite leave to remain. He highlighted that the majority of this cohort were not rough sleepers but in some kind of sofa surfing arrangements, and if it was not possible for officers to resolve their immigration status a potential plan B was to reconnect them with the people they were living with prior to the lockdown. Councillor Butt added that as part of his role in London Councils they had been making representations to government regarding those with no recourse to public funds. He advised that there was a lot of spend across London Councils on no recourse to public funds, with approximately £54m that Councils did not get back. He highlighted that London Councils did provide help, support and guidance to those individuals but did not get compensated for that spend, which caused tension in relation to what was needed to be done.
Committee members raised concerns about the exploitation of homeless people, giving the example of HMO landlords who converted small family homes without permission and filled them with homeless men to live in and claim benefits, sometimes trafficking these people across Boroughs to claim benefits in more than one Borough. The Committee requested that the housing department, homelessness department and planning department began to monitor those processes. Councillor Southwood agreed that it was exploitation of vulnerable homeless, and the Council did uncover victims who this had happened to, often through planning and licensing enforcement work. It was also noted by Committee that many landlords put en suite bathrooms and hobs in rooms so that they were no longer categorised as HMOs as they were classed as self-contained. This meant it was hard to monitor the quality of that accommodation as it was no longer subject to licensing regulations unless it was within a selective licensing area. Councillor Southwood advised that selective licensing was only available in 5 Brent wards at the current time and was due to expire in 2023, therefore there was a need to consider whether the Council should apply to extend and / or expand selective licensing across the Borough. Councillor Southwood advised that she would welcome a recommendation from the Committee for a strategic focus on this, raising awareness of the issues.
In response to Committee members’ proposals that the Council should work with good friendly landlords, Councillor Southwood advised that the Council kept a good landlord database of over 4,000 landlords and also held the landlord forum, which was looking to begin meeting again after covid restrictions. It was agreed that information on how the Council worked with landlords would be circulated to the Committee, and agreed that the Council needed good landlords who were a huge part of helping to reduce homelessness in Brent.
A member of the committee asked about support for vulnerable homeless single people and households and referred to the SMART team in the Appendix of the report. Laurence Coaker confirmed that there was a Housing First scheme in Brent which had been running for a few years. The Council used their own 1 and 2 bed properties for the scheme and St Mungo’s to provide the very high level support for the most vulnerable entrenched rough sleepers. The Council acquired more money through a GLA bid recently for increasing capacity for more support, meaning the number of units was going up to 18 flats to be used for Housing First. Councillor Southwood added that Housing First may not be realistic for some people the Council were supporting therefore it would not be appropriate to adopt the approach all the time.
In response to a question regarding whether the Council reported homelessness to the Home Office, Laurence Coaker responded that the Council did not report any information to the Home Office about individuals and neither did St Mungo’s.
During the discussion several requests for information were made which included:
i) To receive information about how the Council worked with good landlords and encouraged excellence among landlords.
As there were no further questions, the Chair thanked Committee and invited recommendations, with the following recommendations agreed:
i) To develop a strategic focus on developing awareness of the hidden issues of homelessness, such as exploitation of the vulnerable homeless by landlords
ii) To recommend adopting a greater joined up approach and work with external agencies to assist those who made need greater housing support services due to drug or alcohol substance misuse.
Supporting documents:
- 7. Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy 2020-2025, item 7. PDF 169 KB
- 7a. Appendix 1 - Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy - Update, item 7. PDF 91 KB