Memorandum by Thames Reach Bondway (HOM
01)
Please find attached a response to the Housing,
Planning, Local Government and the Regions Committee's inquiry
into homelessness from Thames Reach Bondway.
Thames Reach Bondway is one of the country's
largest providers of homelessness services, employing over 300
staff and assisting over 3,000 individual homeless and former
people every year. The organisation operates across the whole
of London and specialises in helping those people with complex
and multiple problems and support needs, including rough sleepers
and people with substance misuse and mental health problems. Thames
Reach Bondway manages a range of services including street outreach
services, frontline hostels, specialist supported housing projects
for people with drink, drug and mental health problems, tenancy
support services and a range of employment, training and meaningful
occupation schemes.
The inquiry is covering a vast range of issues
and we have concentrated our response on seven key areas, action
on which will make a significant positive difference in the lives
of homeless people and achieve a substantial impact in reducing
homelessness across the country. Clearly our focus is on London,
although we are aware from colleagues from outside London that
most of these issues will resonate nationally. They are:
1. A continued focus on rough sleeping to
reduce numbers sleeping rough to zero.
2. Investment in hostels to improve standards
and the capacity to move people on to a more settled lifestyle.
3. Ensuring that the needs of people who
require high levels of support, often exhibit chaotic behaviour
and have only tenuous links with local authority areas are understood
and met.
4. Discouraging street activity to reduce
homelessness.
5. Ensuring that new supported housing is
developed and remodelled to meet the changing needs of homeless
and former homeless people.
6. The need for a strategic pan-London body
to be given clear responsibility for overseeing the reduction
of homelessness across the capital.
7. That the continuing scandal of the under-performing
housing benefit system is addressed as a matter of urgency.
1. ROUGH SLEEPING—A
PROBLEM THAT
IS DOWN
BUT NOT
OUT
Thames Reach Bondway has played a crucial role
in reducing the number of people sleeping rough in London, working
closely with the Government's Homelessness and Housing Support
Directorate (HHSD) and the City of Westminster. The latter has
commissioned Thames Reach Bondway to lead a partnership of organisations
working with rough sleepers to reduce the number of people sleeping
rough in Westminster.
Considerable progress has been made. Between
October 2003 and August 2004 the partnership led by Thames Reach
Bondway assisted over 1,500 people to leave the streets to temporary
or long-term accommodation.
However in Westminster the number of people
sleeping rough on any one night remains stubbornly high at between
150 and 200 people, with approximately one-third being people
new to the streets of Westminster. The problem of the flow of
new arrivals onto the streets therefore remains a crucial issue
in central London.
Continued concentration on reducing rough sleeping
by central government, working with voluntary organisations and
local authorities, will reduce the numbers sleeping rough in central
London to under 100 on any given night. This will be a considerable
achievement given that over 10 times this number were sleeping
rough in London at the end of the 1980s. The next objective will
be to bring the number of people sleeping rough in the capital
down to zero. But there is also the possibility of numbers rising.
Thames Reach Bondway believes that the government
should continue to make the issue of rough sleeping a high priority
and ensure through vigorous overview of local authority homelessness,
Supporting People and rough sleeping strategies that resources
continue to be directed to ending rough sleeping.
If required, the Office of the Deputy Prime
Minister should insist on the ring fencing of funds by local authorities
to ensure that they fulfil their responsibilities to provide accommodation
and other services to rough sleepers, or alternatively continue
to fund some services for rough sleepers directly.
2. HOSTELS: RAISING
STANDARDS AND
DELIVERING BETTER
LONG-TERM
HOUSING OUTCOMES
The role of homelessness hostels in achieving
the reduction in rough sleeping has been of the utmost significance
with organisations including Thames Reach Bondway striving with
considerable ingenuity and determination to adapt services to
accommodate people with multiple needs including complex mental
health and substance misuse problems. But hostels face a series
of problems that must be addressed if they are to continue to
make the contribution they do.
Firstly they need to be made fit for the 21st
Century in terms of their physical design and we welcome the recent
capital expenditure that the ODPM has directed towards improving
front-line hostels via local authorities.
Secondly, the move on needs of hostel residents
must be given greater attention. Many hostels are now at maximum
capacity with few opportunities for residents to move on within
a reasonable timescale. There are far too many examples of residents
waiting for over 18 months before being offered longer-term housing.
Hostels are an expensive way of providing accommodation and it
is particularly counter-productive to be keeping in hostels individuals
who, through the work of the hostel staff, no longer need the
level of support available. There is a bottleneck at the hostel
stage of the rehabilitative journey that must be tackled, not
least to create the vacancies that will allow further reductions
in street homelessness. The range of options must include supported
housing and also help in assisting residents in returning to their
home area.
Recommendations
The government should request that local authorities
in London contribute a small proportion of self-contained units
each year to a pool of accommodation that can be offered to residents
in those hostels designated as being pan-London provision—that
is, the residents are referred in from different parts of London
rather than just from the host borough as they do not have "local
connection" with any single borough. A contribution of 10
units from each local authority to a central pool of accommodation
would substantially "unblock" hostels and create the
move through that will free up vacancies for current rough sleepers.
The government should require that, as part
of the HHSD's overview of homelessness strategies, local authorities
across London collectively take on a stronger management role
of the hostel sector, including differentiating the roles of hostels
much more rigorously with some being designated as intake and
assessment hostels, some as high support and others as second
stage projects. Until the current ad hoc arrangement of
hostels in London is ordered and reshaped into an effective hostel
system inefficiencies and duplication will prevent the step change
reduction in homelessness in the capital that is desperately needed.
3. COMPLEX NEEDS,
CHAOTIC BEHAVIOUR,
ITINERANT LIFE
STYLE: ENSURING
THAT THE
NEEDS OF
"UNPOPULAR" GROUPS
OF HOMELESS
PEOPLE ARE
UNDERSTOOD AND
MET
We have already noted that unless central government
demonstrates unequivocally and through the threat of sanction
its commitment to reducing rough sleeping further, numbers of
rough sleepers will certainly begin to rise. This, in our view,
is part of a broader problem linked to the transfer of funding
and commissioning responsibilities to local authorities.
We would note that this development makes absolute
sense in terms of developing local democracy and accountability.
We have excellent relationships with a range of local authority
partners with whom we have a shared interest in supporting and
assisting vulnerable homeless people.
However there are risks that need to be considered
and responded to. Targeted programmes that were formally funded
and overseen by central government such as the Rough Sleepers
Initiative (RSI) have come to an end and local authorities are
now responsible for ensuring that the achievements of these programmes
are sustained. The Supporting People funding framework reflects
a dramatic shift of power and responsibility to local authorities,
particularly those who have been granted a three-star rating under
the Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) framework.
Based on evidence from our frontline projects
we fear that local authority priorities will lead to particular
socially excluded groups being neglected in favour of other groups
who may be easier to assist and which fit more comfortably within
traditional local authority priorities.
For example, local authorities are determined
to ensure that the range of accommodation in their boroughs is
focused towards people with a clear borough "local connection".
However, many of the chaotic service users that Thames Reach Bondway
assist have fleeting connections with a range of London boroughs
as a result of their itinerant life-style but no strong relationship
with any single borough.
We are also concerned that funding provided
under Supporting People and through other funding mechanisms controlled
by local authorities will, over time, drift towards meeting the
needs of groups that local authorities have traditionally had
statutory responsibility for, for example the elderly and those
with severe and enduring mental health problems. The groups that
will lose out are those who not only cannot prove a local connection
but who also struggle to establish rights to accommodation and
services under the homelessness legislation: that is, the unpopular
groups—street homeless, intravenous drug users, people with
serious alcohol problems, those with mental health problems that
are not easy to categorise, and homeless people whose chaotic
and sometimes aggressive behaviour makes them particularly difficult
to assist.
Local authorities are not always best placed
to achieve central government priorities and, for example, it
would be extremely disheartening to see over the next few years
a rise in street homelessness caused by local authority parochialism,
with central government eventually having to wrest back responsibility
for rough sleeping. Already we have clear evidence of provision
that was once ring-fenced for rough sleepers regardless of their
borough connections being offered instead to local referrals with
a lower level of need and without a history of rough sleeping.
Recommendation
To avoid this drift we urge the government to
continue funding some services directly where it is clearly expedient
to do so in order to deliver on a national programme related to
a specific group or groups within the homelessness population.
4. DISCOURAGING
STREET ACTIVITY
TO REDUCE
HOMELESSNESS
Central London is a magnet that attracts a range
of people who are part of the wider street population, including
people who come into central London to beg, buy drugs and make
use of the vast number of soup runs and handouts that arrive from
different parts of London and the south of England in the evening
to offer basic services to those on the street. The magnet effect
of central London has a damaging impact on many individuals who
have problems and support needs, often acting to return them to
a rough sleeping life-style after a period off the street in a
hostel or flat.
Figures show that at least eight out of 10 people
begging on the streets of central London have a problem with heroin
or crack cocaine and that the money they receive from the public
is funding this habit. We also view the number of street handouts
as the worst example of unco-ordinated over-provision. Services
must be provided primarily away from the street and former homeless
people assisted to access mainstream services in areas where they
have settled.
Recommendations
Central government should actively support local
authorities in their efforts to reduce begging, working closely
with supportive voluntary sector organisations. The Home Office
through the research commissioned by the Drugs and Begging Working
Group should raise the profile of the link between begging and
the misuse of hard drugs to complement the approach being taken
by the begging trailblazer local authorities.
Access to substance misuse services including
detoxification services and rehabilitation units must become speedier
and easier for those who take the decision to tackle their addiction.
Despite the additional monies directed to drug services it is
still the case that, unlike in New York, we cannot offer access
to such treatment within a 24-hour time frame.
Similarly, the issue of street handouts must
be tackled forcefully, with possible recourse to sanctions imposed
by the need for handouts to meet health and safety hygiene standards
through a joint central and local government initiative to create
a co-ordinated service and a greatly reduced number of handouts
serving central London.
5. SUPPORTING
PEOPLE AND
NEW SUPPORTED
HOUSING DEVELOPMENTS
Thames Reach Bondway welcomes the introduction
of the Supporting People funding regime which has offered opportunities
to provide a higher level of support to complex homeless people.
We remain concerned that the final £1.7 billion Supporting
People settlement has been inflated through the cost shunting
of monies from social services departments.
One of the unfortunate consequences of Supporting
People has been to break the link between capital and revenue
funding that allowed new supported housing developments to be
built under the Housing Corporation's Approved Development Programme
(ADP). This, and the fact that the concentration has largely been
on preserving existing services, has meant that the outlook in
terms of new supported housing is decidedly bleak. We are strongly
of the view that new supported housing developments are needed,
as well as ongoing investment to reshape existing provision, to
meet the changing needs of homeless and former homeless people
who require support. Without this homelessness can only increase.
Recommendations
We urge the Audit Commission to establish which
local authorities are responsible for inappropriate movement of
monies from social services budgets to the Supporting People budget
and act decisively, rather than cutting local authorities across
the board and in doing so punish those who have behaved properly.
It may be necessary to "top-slice"
the Supporting People budget to ensure that the development of
new supported housing and the reshaping of existing provision,
particularly for those groups who do not fit into local authority
priorities because of their itinerant life-style, high level of
need and behavioural problems, is not neglected.
6. A BODY TO
TAKE STRATEGIC
PAN-LONDON
RESPONSIBILITY FOR
REDUCING HOMELESSNESS
Since the demise of the Greater London Council
(GLC) in the 1980s no strategic body has successfully taken responsibility
for homelessness across the capital. Instead, there are a number
of regional bodies (the Government Office for London, Association
of London Government and Greater London Authority) with different
and apparently competing roles, perspectives and priorities representing
particular interests but unable to take a pan-London perspective
and a strong leadership role in resolving issues and overcoming
obstacles in order to reduce homelessness in London. The Homelessness
and Housing Support Directorate is also withdrawing from its once
active role in brokering cross borough arrangements and ensuring
that local authorities take account of their London-wide responsibilities.
With the advent of Supporting People and the
increasing localisation of services noted above, there has become
a clear need to identify a strategic London body with the appropriate
powers which can oversee the development of new homelessness services,
identify gaps in provision, encourage greater development of services
in outer London boroughs to arrest the drift of homeless people
to central London and ensure that funding regimes effectively
target and assist those homeless people who do not fit neatly
within local boundaries or borough priorities.
Recommendation
Thames Reach Bondway believes that the strategic
responsibility for homelessness in London should rest with the
Greater London Authority and the regional assembly, with appropriate
powers given to ensure that services are equitably distributed,
that changing trends in homelessness are reflected in the development
and restructuring of accommodation for homeless people and that
the wider social housing programme in London meets the needs of
homeless people with complex support needs.
7. HOUSING BENEFIT
Some of the solutions to reducing and ending
homelessness are complex and inevitably long-term. A cause of
homelessness that is within the government's power to address
and that, if successfully tackled, could make an immediate positive
impact is the scandal of the housing benefit system in this country.
The variable nature of performance across local authorities in
this area is frankly staggering and sadly, we have examples of
tenants abandoning accommodation and returning to the street or
a hostel as a result of rent arrears that are not the fault of
the tenant but entirely due to administrative bungling and delay
in the processing of housing benefit claims on which they rely.
The response of one Registered Social Landlord to this problem
was to increase the amount a former homeless tenant had to pay
from their Job Seekers' Allowance until such time as the benefit
claim was dealt with, so reducing their weekly income by almost
20%. This discriminatory and highly inappropriate response illustrates
clearly the additional pressures facing former homeless people
attempting to re-establish themselves in society.
Recommendations
We would urge the government to undertake an
urgent review of the housing benefit system to dramatically raise
standards and expectation and increase its efficiency. Apart from
the obvious cost saving this would bring, it is unacceptable that
in 2004 additional homelessness is being created through bureaucratic
muddle in this way.
The experiment being considered by Westminster
City Council to pay housing benefit as a block grant to hostels
should be supported and evaluated with a view to rolling out this
approach nationally should it prove successful, measured by a
reduction in the number of abandonments and evictions from hostels
as a result of rent arrears.
I hope that this response if of help to the
inquiry committee. It is very important in our view that the committee
receives the views of providers of homelessness services as well
as those of the policy and campaigning organisations. I would
be very happy to speak to the committee on these and other related
matters and we view the inquiry as a valuable opportunity to achieve
further progress in reducing and eventually eradicating homelessness
in this country.
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