Memorandum by St Mungo's (HOM 39)
I set out below St Mungo's submission, which
I hope will be of interest to the Committee. We would be very
happy to assist the Committee—by hosting a visit to a St
Mungo's scheme, or by providing further evidence—in any
way we can.
We have limited our response to areas where
we have direct experience.
1. BACKGROUND
St Mungo's is London's largest homelessness
charity with housing projects in 11 boroughs and non-residential
services delivered in almost every borough across the capital.
We work predominantly with vulnerable homeless people, especially
rough sleepers.
We manage shelters and hostels, as well as move-on
housing, high-care schemes, and independent flats. We have a street
outreach service and a day centre; a comprehensive resettlement
programme; an emphasis on health through our specialist drugs,
alcohol and mental health teams; and the most comprehensive programme
of help with education and employment of any homelessness agency
in the UK.
Nearly 1,500 people live in our projects, and
each year our 850 staff help several hundred into health-care
treatment, new housing and jobs and training.
2. THE SCALE
OF HOUSING
NEED
— The continued success in keeping
the numbers of rough sleepers relatively low means that the most
visible and socially corrosive form of homelessness is more or
less contained. This does not mean, however, that the right sort
of housing is in place. The marked neediness of those still on
the streets suggests that existing services lack the necessary
special focus to tackle their needs. This raises questions about
the suitability of existing revenue funding—"Supporting
People"—for developing new services which can drive
down the rough sleeping numbers still further.
— At the same time, we are addressing
new sources of homelessness. Our work in prisons has highlighted
the difficulties faced by short-term (sentences of less than one
year) prisoners in retaining existing accommodation, or obtaining
new housing on release. If release involves homelessness, it is
small wonder that so many people re-offend.
— There are other groups of people
(eg sex-workers; young males; people from BME communities) whose
housing needs are currently inadequately assessed. Pressures from
these groups demonstrate that the housing stock cannot meet the
demand for housing.
— As the face of homelessness changes,
the nature and scale of provision also needs to change if we are
not to be overwhelmed by demand. It is noticeable currently, for
example, that although there are many homelessness providers,
very few seem able to cope with the epidemic of drug dependency
in the homeless population.
— Lurking in the background is the
spectre of rough sleeping numbers rising again. Even in economically
benign conditions, the government target for reducing the numbers
has not been met in central London. Should the economy take a
downturn, numbers will rise, and it is clear that no contingency
is in place. There should be one—but to be effective, it
would have to be based on an honest appraisal of why the RSU succeeded,
and part of the answer lies in its semi-detachment from ODPM.
3. THE SUCCESS
OF POLICIES
IN MEETING
THE NEEDS
OF HOMELESS
PEOPLE
— There has historically been a correlation
between the levels of family homelessness and single homelessness.
This correlation has been eliminated by the Rough Sleepers' Unit,
as it was, which oversaw the driving down of rough sleeping numbers
at the very time that family homelessness soared. The policy lesson
surely has to be that targeted resources can deliver; and that
the voluntary sector can be a business-like partner. Now that
the numbers of statutorily homeless single homeless people have
risen, this lesson must be learnt swiftly.
— Many of the small-scale initiatives
overseen by the RSU—such as the development of the programme
of temporary shelters—have been enormously successful and,
for relatively little cost, had a widespread and beneficial impact.
— The extension of "priority need"
categories induced a general "feel-good" haze, but overlooked
the struggles by London local authorities to meet existing statutory
requirements for rehousing. This is an example of good policy,
bad practice.
— Despite government mantras such as
"what matters is what works", the disappointing aspect
has been the continued wedge driven between policy and practice.
The challenge for the ODPM here is to make policy-formulation
more accessible to the practitioners who bring front-line experience
into play.
4. THE ADEQUACY
OF CAPITAL
INVESTMENT
— The recent announcement about capital
funding to upgrade key hostels in London is welcome in terms of
improving conditions for homeless people. It is crucial to recognise,
however, that the wear-and-tear in hostels means that such improvements
have a short life. Major re-provisioning of London's hostel stock
needs to take place periodically, and there is currently no mechanism
for doing this. The vital missing piece is a London hostels strategy.
— "Hostels On-Line" tracks
vacancies in London, and on many occasions during a year there
are no vacancies for males over 25. This shows that there is under-capacity.
Not only should this be rectified, but in our opinion the desirability
of a swift response to a range of needs is a powerful argument
(as is the case in the NHS) for a reasonable degree of over-capacity
to be built into the system.
— The insufficiency of move-on accommodation
is a repeat theme in these kinds of submission. The positive work
done by hostels is undermined if people who are ready to move
on are simply stuck in situ. The GLA estimates that 30%
of London's 14,000 hostel residents are ready to move but have
nowhere to go. Central government needs to respond to this.
— We do not just believe that there
is insufficient capital investment—we also believe that
it is directed towards the wrong players. Mainstream housing associations
are favoured to receive the capital funding and do the development,
despite the obvious fact that their knowledge about homelessness
projects is very sparse. In future, capital allocations and ownership
should go to the managing agent (especially where that managing
agent is a housing association in its own right) so that there
is a long-term commitment to the client group. This would also
ensure that unreasonable property charges are not levied on the
tenants.
— Capital investment cannot be considered
in isolation from continued revenue support. We at St Mungo's
have argued for 20 years that high-support needs are constantly
under-estimated, and the consequence is that very dependent people
are accommodated in what amount to low-support projects, with
all the difficulties which that entails.
5. PRIORITY FOR
THE HOMELESS
WITHIN SOCIAL
HOUSING OVERALL
— The combination of rises in both
house prices and household formation has meant greater rationing
of new-build housing. Notwithstanding that pressure on supply,
we consider it vital that single homeless people should obtain
a priority proportion of new housing, as well as of re-lets. We
worry that social housing may be seen as part of the necessary
infrastructure for predominantly economic regeneration, and thus
be disproportionately reserved for workers at the expense of homeless
people.
— Homelessness must not be confused
with any generalised notion of "housing need". The latter
is relative, the former absolute—and homeless people must
always have a priority.
— Current jargon—eg "sustainable
communities"—must not be permitted to serve as a covert
excuse for excluding people.
6. WHETHER NON-HOUSING
SERVICES ARE
ADEQUATE AND
CO -ORDINATED
WITH HOUSING PROVISION
— The short answer is "no".
One could fill a large library—and we suspect the DoH has—with
research documents showing that the incidence of physical and
mental illnesses is significantly higher amongst homeless people
than housed populations, but this seems to have little effect
on health service strategies. It is high time that the Primary
Care Trusts, Mental Health Trusts and others were required to
specify precisely how they will address the health needs of homeless
people.
— As local authorities search for services
to cut back in order to achieve their "Supporting People"
savings, there are signs that they will target health-related
services, arguing that these are available from health or social
services. It is well-known, however, that people with complex
needs avoid statutory services because of their bad experiences
with them, and have a better prognosis with voluntary sector services.
The vested interest of commissioners in maintaining their own
in-house services must be challenged.
— The same argument applies to the
Employment Service and to Learning & Skills Councils. By focusing
on the job-ready, they are overlooking the potential of those
who might be able to obtain employment eventually, but who need
help along the way. This has the effect of trapping homeless people
into their predicament because it denies them the very sense of
opportunity which government decrees in other fora to be so desirable.
Target-driven funding has actually increased the very social exclusion
which other areas of government are aiming to tackle.
7. WHETHER PUBLIC
AGENCIES ARE
EFFECTIVE IN
PREVENTING HOMELESSNESS
— We think that advice services have
improved significantly, and common sense suggests that this will
have had a marked effect on prevention.
— We are, and always have been, sceptical
about the value of "far out" prevention. We distinguish
between "pathways" and "triggers", and we
prefer to see resources concentrated on "close in" triggers.
An example of this is people leaving prison—there is a growing
realisation that not only is prison not rehabilitative, but that
the poor discharge arrangements can lead directly to homeless,
with a consequent risk of repeat offending. We would like to see
the housing needs of short-term prisoners being addressed at a
regional level. But prison is just one example—the real
challenge is to provide soft landings for people leaving institutions—prison,
hospital, marriages—as this is where homelessness can kick
in.
— We know of schemes tackling anti-social
behaviour around the country which have achieved very successful
interventions, thereby avoiding evictions and subsequent homelessness.
It must, though, be a concern to ODPM that evictions by RSLs are
reaching the highest levels ever. We are certainly concerned,
and are considering not accepting people who have been evicted
by other RSLs as we do not believe that we should bale out their
housing management deficiencies, and we do not think that they
do enough to support people to avoid eviction.
— The scale of repossessions which
are due to the mismanagement of Housing Benefit by local authorities
is a national disgrace, and the failure of central government
to tackle this is baffling.
— On a bigger scale, it is perverse
to be knocking down perfectly good homes in some parts of the
country because of lack of demand, whilst land and housing is
squeezed in the south-east. The reason for this seems to be the
mismatch between the supply of jobs and of housing; and that only
serious investment in economic development will stem the flow
of labour which can lead to homelessness.
8. OTHER
— Local authority homelessness strategies
are only a start. Already there is evidence of inadequate analysis
of the profile and needs of the main homeless sub-groups; and
of a failure to engage properly with voluntary sector partners.
A full review of the benefit of the strategies needs to be undertaken
as a matter of urgency.
— The situation in London is especially
complex. The interconnections between the Regional Housing Board,
the Mayor's Spatial Development Strategy, and the emerging sub-regional
investment strategy are best appreciated by development specialists,
with the result that specialists in housing management (especially
when combined with support) can be squeezed out. The need to additionally
cultivate relationships with developing housing associations,
local authorities, the Housing Corporation and even perhaps GOL
makes the institutional structures unnecessarily impenetrable.
— Despite this plethora of bodies,
it is noticeable that there is not yet any coherent approach to
cross-authority or London-wide working, and the need for this
is urgently felt.
— We are not convinced that history
shows many examples of central government priorities being successfully
delivered by local government.
— The Homelessness Directorate is evolving
a new approach which is stand-offishly remote from service providers,
and which sees delivery as the remit of local authorities. This
is very different to the approach a few years ago. We experience
both then and now as lacking balance, and would prefer to see
better dialogue between commissioner and provider—and HmD
has a pivotal role in achieving this. Fundamentally, it needs
to be seen to be in the vanguard of tackling homelessness, rather
than leading from the rear.
— Successful assaults on homelessness
do not just require resources and strategies—they also require
people, and the widespread concern about staff shortages and under-skilling
ought to be a concern to government. The need to build up a corps
of skilled professionals should be at the heart of ODPM's future
plans. We would also argue that we provide an emergency service,
albeit in a niche area, and that our staff should be considered
as "key workers" in terms of access to affordable housing.
Charles Fraser
Chief Executive
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