Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
PROFESSOR SUZANNE
FITZPATRICK AND
MR NICHOLAS
PLEACE
26 OCTOBER 2004
Q1 Chairman: Can I welcome everyone to
the first session of the Committee's inquiry into homelessness.
Before I turn to the witnesses can I just draw to everybody's
attention the fact that the written evidence we have received
so far is now available from the Stationery Office at some large
price which I cannot quite find at the moment—£20.50—which
does not seem to me to be very good value for money. It is available,
but much cheaper of course, on the House of Commons web site.
So if you want to find out what other people have said there is
your opportunity to go and look at it. May I express the Committee's
gratefulness to all those people who have put in evidence. May
I ask the two of you to introduce yourselves for the record please.
Professor Fitzpatrick:
I am Suzanne Fitzpatrick, Director of the Centre for Housing Policy
at the University of York.
Mr Pleace: Nicholas Pleace, Senior
Research Fellow at the CHP at the University of York.
Q2 Chairman: Looking at the faces of
people at the back no-one could hear that so could you speak up.
I am afraid the acoustics in this room are not very good. The
devices in front of you do not help the people in the room. I
think they may help the broadcast but they do not help them, so
if you could speak up that would be helpful. Do you want to say
anything by way of introduction or are you happy to go straight
into questions?
Professor Fitzpatrick: We are
happy to go straight to questions.
Chairman: Right. Bill O'Brien?
Q3 Mr O'Brien: Could I put it to you
that the underlying causes of homelessness is an issue that gives
rise to concern in many areas and you point out that the headline
figure for homelessness—local authority acceptances—is
at a record high and the trend has been upward for a long time.
Aside from housing supply, what are the main factors underlying
this rising demand in terms of demographics, changing social patterns
and so on?
Professor Fitzpatrick: The upward
trend is actually fairly recent in that in the pattern in homelessness
acceptances in England there was a very rapid rise in the late
1980s/early 1990s, then there was a drop in the 1990s and it slowly
started to rise again since around 1997. I think in terms of long-term
upward rises in homelessness they have been going on since the
early 1980s through a combination of factors. The increase of
poverty and unemployment, particularly in the late 1980s, was
very closely linked with the rises in homelessness and the evolving
restructuring of family relationships. We know that relationship
breakdown, both for women and particularly for young people, is
very closely associated with homelessness. In terms of the very
recent rise since about 1997 onwards, it looks like housing market
factors are most important in terms of the trend upwards, although
not necessarily in terms of the overall causes of homelessness
because the rate of homelessness was already running quite high.
Q4 Mr O'Brien: When you refer to increase
in poverty what evidence do you have on that? What kind of poverty
are you referring to, economic poverty or other factors?
Professor Fitzpatrick: To give
you perhaps the clearest example, there was a very, very strong
relationship between the rapid rise in youth homelessness in the
late 1980s and the changes in the Social Security Act 1986 which
made it more difficult for young people to gain access to Income
Support and for 16 and 17-year-olds it caused severe hardship.
That is a clear example where a particular economic change, a
social security change has a demonstrable impact on homelessness,
and from research I have done myself with young people that was
very clear.
Q5 Mr O'Brien: What about people in employment,
do we see poverty in that sector?
Professor Fitzpatrick: From the
evidence we do have of homeless households, which is not complete
and that is something we might go on to talk about the need for
greater evidence, it suggests quite strongly that the great majority
of homeless households in recent years have been unemployed and
that is across single homeless households and families. There
will be some families in particular where there is someone in
employment but on most occasions the research evidence, such as
it is tells, us that they are unemployed. That was not the case,
as far as we know, in the 1960s and 1970s; it has been case, as
I say, in the 1980s.
Q6 Mr O'Brien: In your evidence you say
"to what extent is homelessness attributable to housing market
failures or to more complex social exclusion dynamics?" You
ask that question; have you got the answer to that?
Mr Pleace: We think it is a combination
of factors really. I suppose our central thesis from the research
that we have done over the years is that people who are characterised
by what is called "social exclusion" or "socio-economic
marginalisation" (in terms of exclusion from education when
young and not being likely to be in employment and tending to
be quite socially and politically marginalised) tend to be the
population who are over-represented in the homeless population.
Our research evidence I think shows that that section of society
which is socio-economically marginalised tends to be the section
of society that is affected by wider structural forces such as
housing market change or labour market change.
Q7 Chairman: The number of 16 and 17-year-olds
is actually going down, is it not, in the population?
Professor Fitzpatrick: I think
that is right, I am not certain.
Q8 Chairman: So if you are saying it
is an increasing problem that things are actually getting much
worse, are they not, for 16 and 17-year-olds?
Professor Fitzpatrick: I think
we do have to refer to the changes that there have been in the
legislation which provide priority need status for 16 and 17-year-olds
who did not have it previously. The fact that those numbers are
going up does not necessarily mean that the number of young people
in that age group who are becoming homeless has risen. It may
have done but in all likelihood the numbers who are homeless in
that age group are becoming more visible in the statistics because
they now have priority need status which they did not have before.
So I do not think we would take issue on that point.
Q9 Mr Sanders: In terms of the trends
in homelessness we know that acceptances peaked in 1991 and then
showed some decline in the early 1990s before they started to
rise again. What actually happened in the early 1990s that led
to an improvement?
Professor Fitzpatrick: The numbers
peaked in 1991 at an exceptionally high level so what you had
there was the impact of what had happened in the late 1980s where,
for example, as I said before, the numbers of young homeless people
really catapulted from the mid-1980s position. I think what you
had after 1991 was something of a plateau-ing effect and then
a gentle drop but it was quite a shallow drop and it started to
lift again. I think one of the things that happened in the mid-1990s,
of course, was the Homeless Act 1996 which restricted homeless
persons' entitlements under the homeless legislation. While we
cannot be certain, it seems likely that that had some disincentive
effect on people coming forward to gain access to housing under
the Act because their entitlements were restricted, so I think
some of the shallowing out in the mid-1980s was probably attributable
to the legislation. Other than that it was a plateau-ing off of
what was an extreme increase in late 1980s.
Q10 Mr Sanders: So would the reverse
be true of the current upward trend as a consequence of the more
recent Housing Act?
Professor Fitzpatrick: I am sorry,
could you say that again?
Q11 Mr Sanders: Is the reverse true with
the more recent Housing Act that has widened priority groups?
Is that now behind the trend in the other direction?
Professor Fitzpatrick: I had a
look at the statistics on this and because the statistics break
the priority need groups down into their constituent parts it
looks like there is an upward trend not just in relation to the
new groups but also the existing priority groups, in other words,
homeless families and older vulnerable people, and so on. So while
one-third of the increase looks as if it is attributable to new
groups, about two-thirds of it is attributable to the existing
groups. It looks as if there is an underlying upward trend. Some
of it can be attributed to the new priority need groups but not
all of it.
Q12 Mr Sanders: Is that trend continuing
or do you think it is now complete?
Professor Fitzpatrick: It is difficult
to say. In the last two or three quarters it looks like it has
flattened out but it is difficult to say, I think, without looking
at this in the slightly longer run as to whether it is going to
plateau out and start to dip or it is just plateau-ing rather
than dipping or rising in the last two or three quarters. It has
been rising pretty steadily until about a year or so ago and it
is still just flattening out.
Mr Pleace: It is important to
bear in mind that acceptances measure one thing, which is approaches
to local authorities, and something else is happening as well
which is an increase in the use and level of temporary accommodation
where there is a steeper upward curve. We have got that pattern
as well. The only thing I would add is that in terms of the pattern
of acceptances our feeling is that there are quite important regional
variations in terms of how that is patterning out in terms of
what you see in London compared to cities in the Midlands and
the North.
Q13 Mr Sanders: You often hear that there
is regional variation but in the housing market there are more
commonalities in similar economic and social entities between
regions, for example, rural areas, for example big cities (although
there is not necessarily a big city in every region) and for example
coastal resorts, and they all exhibit similar characteristics
across regions, so when you look at the regional statistics there
is this rather greater commonality. I do not know whether you
agree that we might be missing something by looking at things
in regions?
Mr Pleace: If you are talking
about the North East and South West it is probably too aggregated
to see the kind of effects that you are talking about but some
recent work we have done for ODPM in a feasibility study on family
homes suggests a correlation between the degree of housing stress
and the extent of temporary accommodation. You can draw two graphs
and if you look at those localities which are characterised by
housing stress—this is at the level of individual authorities—then
they tend to be areas that have greater use of temporary accommodation.
Regional effects is probably not the way to talk about it. It
is specific area effects and linked to things like housing markets,
labour markets and other local factors which we think alter the
pattern of homelessness in terms of small-scale homelessness.
Q14 Sir Paul Beresford: There is a tendency
in this country for university under-graduates to leave home and
rent accommodation. They presumably absorb a considerable proportion
of university town private accommodation that is available. Is
this a factor here perhaps compared to Europe?
Professor Fitzpatrick: Not as
far as I am aware. I do not know of any work which suggests that
homelessness is higher in university towns than it is elsewhere.
I would not suggest that was the case.
Q15 Sir Paul Beresford: Commonsense would
tell you if you have got tens of thousands of students using accommodation,
even five to a house, there would be a housing shortage.
Professor Fitzpatrick: We need
to look at the complexity of causes of homelessness. I do not
think it is as straightforward as one particular housing demand
group driving homelessness. In so far as housing market factors
underline levels of homelessness, it is about the balance between
supply and demand, so there are circumstances where supply might
respond to that particular demand and in other cases where it
might not. I do not think it is necessarily down to any one demand
group. Our other central thesis, which I think does have an important
regional variation, and which is based on qualitative research
that we have done (we are hoping that ODPM will commission a quantitative
survey soon which will give us some rigorous statistical information
on this) is that the balance of causes of homelessness is likely
to differ depending on structural factors. In some cases we believe,
based on the work that we have done, housing stress and housing
demand pressures of various kinds are particularly important in
driving homelessness. London is a key example of that but there
are others. However, in other places where there is excess housing
and low demand for housing you still have high rates of homelessness.
I think an interesting question is why do we still have high levels
of homelessness in those areas? In those places there are drivers
which include the social dislocations associated with poverty
and unemployment and they tend to be driving homelessness. The
important thing about that is that it then changes the complexity
of the homeless population that you are dealing with and changes
what the appropriate interventions should be. That is why we think
looking at homelessness within a local context and what the particular
drivers are in those cases is so important and in some instances,
perhaps, demand from particular groups like students will be particularly
important but I cannot say it is a factor that I have particularly
come across in the work that I have done.
Q16 Chairman: You are saying that the
problems of homelessness are very different in different parts
of the country?
Professor Fitzpatrick: Yes, that
would be our hypothesis.
Mr Pleace: Very quickly just to
restate that and to summarise it, in some areas, for example areas
of high housing stress, we would expect a bigger proportion of
the homeless population to become homeless simply for economic
factors. So for example where housing costs are very high and
a household loses one of its wage earners, for whatever reason,
it might not then be able to afford to pay the rent and thus become
homeless. In areas where there is not the same degree of housing
stress it might be that the homeless population is characterised
by higher levels of need because in some senses it is harder to
become homeless in areas where housing costs are low and where
social housing is relatively plentiful. Where households become
homeless in that context it might mean that there are factors
like support needs and like the kinds of social dislocation that
Professor Fitzpatrick is talking about that become more important
in those areas.
Q17 Chairman: Can I take you on to temporary
accommodation. In fact the numbers in temporary accommodation
have doubled, have they not, in the last six years? Is that going
to double again in the next six years?
Professor Fitzpatrick: I think
we would want to be cautious about predictions but one of the
things that we have come across in looking at statistics and looking
at the associations between levels of homelessness and various
indicators of homelessness is a very strong correlation between
the numbers of people in temporary accommodation and various indicators
of housing stress, particularly affordability problems, so in
other words those areas of the country in which housing is in
greatest demand and is most difficult to access there is a much
stronger relationship with the numbers of people in temporary
accommodation than there is with some of the numbers necessarily
coming forward and being accepted as homeless. It looks like the
main association between housing stress and homelessness is the
difficulty that there is in moving people on from temporary accommodation.
Some research that Nicholas has done recently has shown a very
close correlation between Professor Steve Wilcox's (with whom
we work) indicators of housing affordability and the rates of
use of temporary accommodation in various parts of the country.
I think that is one indicator which is going to be very strongly
associated with housing stress
Q18 Chairman: So you are suggesting that
temporary accommodation is really a measure of housing stress.
What is wrong with temporary accommodation in itself?
Mr Pleace: It depends what kind
of temporary accommodation you are talking about. For the most
part local authorities use ordinary housing under various arrangements.
There are particular problems around some forms of temporary accommodation
used in some local authorities. You will all be aware of families
being placed in bed and breakfast and recent government actions
around that. There are other forms of temporary accommodation
which may be inappropriate in terms of location, size, design
and the range of amenities that they offer. Thus some hostel accommodation
which might be used for some households might be inappropriate.
Some areas that are characterised by high housing stress are not
necessarily cities, they are rural localities that have relatively
few people in temporary accommodation but there are difficulties
in moving those households on. You might find that a rural local
authority has a homeless hostel which accommodates both single
homeless people and is also sometimes used for families, and that
accommodation might be inappropriate for a range of reasons because,
for example, there might be an undesirable mix of people in terms
of the range of needs that they have got if there are children
present in that accommodation.
Q19 Chairman: How much temporary accommodation
is poor quality or unsuitable?
Mr Pleace: It is difficult to
say in some respects. There has not been systematic research on
that since some work was done by Pat Niner in 1989 which did suggest
a range of problems within temporary accommodation. For the most
part the temporary accommodation used by local authorities is
housing. The degree to which that housing is of an acceptable
standard is going to be affected by a range of things. There are
issues around size. Quite often groups such as homeless families
become homeless with very few resources, so a woman escaping domestic
violence with her children might take flight very suddenly which
means she has no financial services, she has no furniture, and
she has no white goods. Providing her with an unfurnished temporary
house might not be a very satisfactory solution but a local authority
may be in a position where it is only able to do that and only
in time able to equip that house. So it is a function of size,
suitability of location, is there somewhere safe for the children
to play, is there somewhere safe to let the children out? Is it
a safe environment if it is a vulnerable person who has been accepted
because they have mental health problems? Is the locality going
to affect their well-being? There are all kinds of environmental
factors, things around space, things around amenities within the
accommodation.
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