Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-37)
PROFESSOR SUZANNE
FITZPATRICK AND
MR NICHOLAS
PLEACE
26 OCTOBER 2004
Q20 Chairman: Some temporary accommodation
is both totally unsuitable and expensive so in financial terms
it would make better sense for local authorities to try to find
permanent accommodation rather than temporary accommodation?
Professor Fitzpatrick: I think
it is fair to say that there have been significant achievements
in respect of reducing the use of bed and breakfast. Obviously
the priority has been for families but there has also been a very
recent reduction in its use for all households, and that is very
welcome.
Q21 Chairman: Perhaps the bed and breakfast
has just declined and other temporary accommodation has increased
to balance it out?
Professor Fitzpatrick: The other
temporary accommodation that tends to have increased is use of
private sector leasing and use of local authorities' own accommodation.
As Nicholas said, we do not have complete information on a large
scale and systematic basis about how satisfactory that is but
the qualitative information we have suggests that that type of
ordinary housing used as temporary accommodation is much cheaper
and it seems to be far more satisfactory. You asked why it is
such a problem in the South. Part of the problem in the South
is because bed and breakfast does tend to be used more so than
it is elsewhere in the country. Overwhelmingly in the northern
cities, for example, local authorities use their own stock or
RSL stock to accommodate families. From what we know, which is
qualitative, that is much better than bed and breakfast. There
are other forms of temporary accommodation which are used and
the figures on this are fairly steady, things like women refuges
and hostels and so on. It is patchy but some of that accommodation
is excellent and gives people the breathing space and support
that they need to move on. We must not think of temporary accommodation
as always being a bad thing. In some instances where it is suitable
and provides the support that people need and it is not for too
long a period it can be very valuable, including for some young
people. What we want to get away from is very protracted periods
in poor quality and inappropriate bed and breakfast and other
forms of mixed hostels for families and single people because
what we know is that is often felt to be very unsafe for children
for example. One of the key points that has emerged recently,
certainly in Scotland and in England, is that permanent accommodation
can sometimes be at least as much of a problem as temporary accommodation.
In other words, families and other people in temporary accommodation
can be reluctant to move out because the permanent accommodation
they are being offered, thinking particularly of the North rather
than London and the South East, in the larger urban areas, is
so poor and in areas in which they feel so unsafe. The permanent
can be worse than the temporary. I think that is an important
point to get across but, again, it is a very regionally and locally
differentiated point.
Q22 Mr Betts: To come back to regional
differences, first of all in London, is London just an extreme
case that simply reflects what the rest of the country goes through
only to a greater degree or is it very different indeed in terms
of homelessness?
Professor Fitzpatrick: It is very
different indeed. I think London is a unique case within Britain.
We have some areas where there are parallels with New York for
example but within Britain London is very different. There are
all manner of reasons why London is different. To pick out two
of the key issues, London is unusual in having a co-existence
of a very high housing stress level and very high levels of poverty.
Most parts of the country tend to have one or the other. Existing
research evidence suggests that both are strong causes of homelessness.
In London you have both co-existing and I think that makes not
just the absolute numbers but, as you will see from the statistics,
the proportionate numbers, the rate at which people living in
London become homeless much higher than anywhere else in the country.
The rates of long-term stay in temporary accommodation are also
exceptionally high. The recent work done by the Audit Commission
suggests that people spend 22 weeks on average in bed and breakfast
in London as compared to seven weeks elsewhere in the country.
You are talking about extreme difficulties moving people on from
temporary accommodation.
Mr Pleace: To add one statistic
there, one of the things we looked at in recent work was the average
number of families in temporary accommodation for each family
that was accepted during the course of 2002. If you look at the
North East, the North West and the Midlands there is roughly on
average one family in temporary accommodation for each new family
that is accepted. In London there are eight families in temporary
accommodation for each new family that is accepted.
Q23 Sir Paul Beresford: Do you think
this is adequately reflected in the government grant to local
authorities in London?
Professor Fitzpatrick: I am afraid
we have not looked at that in detail so we could not comment on
that.
Q24 Mr Betts: In terms of the North you
indicated that you think economic factors predominate in why people
become homeless but the economy has been getting a lot better
in the last few years. Why has that situation occurred? There
are more empty homes in many of the northern areas and we have
also got a lot more jobs so why has homelessness gone up? I cannot
put the two together.
Professor Fitzpatrick: The important
thing in terms of looking at homelessness in the North in particular,
and as I said earlier it is complex, (and it more obvious why
there is homelessness in areas of high housing stress; I think
it is more challenging to look at why they become homeless elsewhere)
is that to describe the causes as economic does not capture the
complexity of what we are talking about. I think it is something
that is probably better expressed as "social exclusion".
It is the extent to which people are falling behind the rest of
society rather than the straightforward issue of not being able
to buy housing or not being able to afford housing in those areas.
I think it is the fact of low status, low self-esteem, the social
problems that are attendant upon living in very deprived areas,
and the restrictions of life chances that are associated with
that. While the economy has improved across the country and levels
of employment have increased and so on—and that is very
welcome—we all know there are areas that have been left
behind and while we do not have good geographically discrete information
on this yet I am hoping that the ODPM-commissioned study will
allow us to test the hypothesis that levels of homelessness are
very heavily concentrated in what the Government used to call
the worst deprived estates. I think that is where concentrated
levels of homelessness are. It is to do with social exclusion
of people living in those areas. I do not think that has been
fully reached by the rising prosperity, for instance, of society.
In fact, it could be made worse because of the relativity factors.
Mr Pleace: The existing qualitative
research does suggest an association between sustained experience
of compound disadvantage and experience of homelessness. We cannot
go to the point now because we do not have the evidence to suggest
that there might be things like inter-generational homelessness
happening. We do not have strong enough evidence to think about
that but certainly if you look, for example, at Suzanne's work
on young homeless people and some of the other work that has been
done on young homeless people they come disproportionately from
very marginalised backgrounds and are likely not to be in employment,
education or training when they reach their teenage years. We
are talking about a subset of a population which because they
are in a state and to such a degree of compound disadvantage then
wider economic prosperity is harder for them to access. It does
not trickle down to them in the same way it does to other sectors
of the population.
Q25 Chris Mole: You welcome the Government's
intention to have a step change in housing supply in the South
East, especially in the growth areas, but how do you think it
is going to help in the districts with the highest demand, most
of which is not in the growth areas?
Professor Fitzpatrick: There are
two things going on. One is that high housing stress overall squeezes
those at the bottom of the housing market and they find it
increasingly difficult to access accommodation. Therefore, if
you were to manage to ease housing pressures across the South
that would feed through, we believe, to improving the ability
to move people on from temporary accommodation. That said, whether
any particular housing developments will in a very direct sense
enable the housing of the homeless does depend to a large extent
on where it is and whether it is where the housing demand comes
from. What we know from a lot of research that ourselves and other
people have done is that most homeless people are very local and
most homeless people present as homeless where they live and that
is where they want to continue to be. We are not entirely sure
whether that is true in London because London, again, is very
different from everywhere else. For example, it has high levels
of inward migration. It is difficult to envisage that the increasing
step change in housing supply will not help but the extent to
which it will reach those in greatest need is something that we
need to monitor over time.
Q26 Chris Mole: There is no specific
evidence that a higher rate of general house-building would make
a difference to homelessness?
Professor Fitzpatrick: It is not
a question that is amenable to very straightforward answers. It
is something where you have to wait and see and where you probably
have to do some quite sophisticated modelling which we have not
done as yet. It is the sort of question that is probably best
responded to by commentators like Steve Wilcox who looks at the
macro level housing market and affordability questions. What we
are looking at instead is the effects of that and the micro-level
impacts of it.
Mr Pleace: I suppose I would qualify
that slightly. If our hypothesis is right, which is that some
homelessness is economic and not being able to afford housing
and the other kind of homelessness is more linked to support need,
experience of disadvantage and things like that, you might find
a situation where different sectors—and I am speaking hypothetically—of
the homeless population might benefit at different levels from
house building. Where there is a straightforward economic causation
of homelessness people are homeless because they cannot afford
current market rents or mortgages or something like that, you
would expect that the simple provision of affordable housing would
make a difference to that group. Where people are homeless because
they have got health needs, support needs and other issues which
might undermine their capacity to sustain a tenancy on their own
for example, straightforward provision of housing might not assist
that group. It would indirectly because obviously one of their
problems is that they have not got somewhere affordable to live
but it might not be in itself enough to guarantee a sustained
exit from homelessness.
Q27 Chris Mole: Can I ask you to speculate
on whether the benefits of more general house-building filter
down the system or whether it would be the right approach to make
more direct social housing provision to really help the poorest
people?
Professor Fitzpatrick: I think
this question is related to a broader argument that is based on
the evidence that we have that the balance in those two groups
that Nicholas was describing is different in different parts of
the country. We do not have (and no-one has) direct quantitative
evidence of what the balance of homeless people's support needs
are in different parts of the country. Once the ODPM have conducted
the survey that we have mentioned then we should have better evidence
on that. Our hypothesis in the meantime is that that housing need
only group is going to be proportionately, as well as absolutely,
larger in the South because housing market affordability factors
are more central to the levels of homelessness. Based on that
we would argue logically that it seems very likely that easing
housing market shortages in the South will help a lot of homeless
people in the South. That said, there is a continuing issue about
whether the increase in housing supply is in the right place.
If homelessness is a very local issue that might blunt the impact
of increasing the overall supply if it is not in the right places
in the South. I think that is something that we would need to
examine in the light of evidence as the housing comes on stream
to see what people's behaviour is.
Q28 Chris Mole: You talked in your written
submission about residential segregation into ever more homogenous
communities, and people with choice putting as much distance as
possible between themselves and poorer people. Does this mean
that policies in favour of more mixed sustainable communities
have failed?
Professor Fitzpatrick: I think
it is very, very difficult because the process of residential
segregation has been happening for decades, so what you are doing
is trying to swim against the tide with policies that promote
mixed communities. Because I think new house-building accounts
for less than 1% of all new housing stock in any particular year,
if you are promoting mixed communities through section 106 and
through pepper-potting the social rented sector with other forms
of housing, I think that is a very positive policy, but it is
going to be a long-term process to change nature of the housing
stock I think wherever possible policy should do all that it can
to create mixed communities but I do not think that anybody should
think it is going to be an easy and a quick fix because it is
a long-term process we are trying to reverse.
Q29 Chairman: You have almost suggested
that mixed communities are being segregated by people's choice.
Is that right?
Professor Fitzpatrick: I think
that is right. There is a dilemma for policy in that we have an
increasingly marketised housing sector and we have had for a long
time with owner-occupation increasing. We also have policies whereby
we wish to allow greater choice for people in the social rented
sector with quasi market principles being introduced there as
well. I can see good reasons for that. Everyone wants choice nowadays
and why should poor people not have it as well. I think at the
same time we have to be very clear and very honest about what
the costs of those choices are. Because the choices that people
make tend to be to live among people like themselves, and if they
are the sort of people who have choice and are more advantaged,
then there are costs of that and the costs are social justice
ones borne by those people who do not have as much choice. I think
it is a dilemma but from a social justice point of view it is
very important, wherever possible, to promote mixed communities.
The more we introduce choice and the more we emphasise choice
within the housing market the more the natural tendency will be
towards segregation and there is very, very strong statistical
evidence on that now. The 2001 Census, recently analysed by Danny
Dollan (?), has shown that the tendency towards residential segregation
has increased over the last 10 years. Just in the same way it
did in the 1980s it has done over the 1990s. It is a real dilemma
and a very difficult one for social policy.
Q30 Mr Betts: Do you think we should
change the legislation and go more towards the Scottish system
of giving permanent accommodation to everyone who becomes homeless?
Professor Fitzpatrick: If what
we are interested in doing is providing a secure safety net for
all homeless people then that would be the sensible way to go.
Local authorities are the only bodies in the position to take
on that responsibility of ensuring that every homeless person
has access to housing. That said, the Scottish approach is fairly
radical not just within Britain but in the western world in terms
of providing a comprehensive safety net to all homeless groups
rather than just certain priority groups. I would not want to
under-estimate the difficulty in moving the English legislation
in that direction because local authorities in many parts of the
country would, quite rightly, argue that they do not have the
housing stock and they do not have the access to RSL stock that
would enable them to fulfil those obligations. One is one element
of the Scottish approach which is very helpful is that it is a
phased expansion of priority need allied with periodic assessments
of local authorities' ability to cope. For that reason I think
it would be interesting for England to keep a close eye on how
Scottish local authorities are coping because while Scottish local
authorities, if you take Scotland as a whole, have a higher proportion
of social rented stock than England (it is still running at about
30%) these obligations are also being imposed on local authorities
in Scotland which have very low levels of social rented stock.
Rural areas of Scotland have no more social housing stock than
a lot of areas in England. So I think a careful localised look
of what is happening in Scotland would be very useful. If we want—and
personally of course I would like to see this—a secure safety
net for all homeless people then I think it would be the direction
to move in, with a careful eye on local authorities' capacity
to cope. Another important point in the Scottish system which
I do not think I have mentioned in the paper is that with stock
transfer—and people are probably aware of the Glasgow stock
transfer which was very major but there have been other stock
transfers in Scotland as well—part of the Housing (Scotland)
Act 2001 imposed a duty on RSLs to accommodate homeless households
referred to them by local authorities. It would be very difficult
to impose a duty in England on local authorities to accommodate
homeless households without a similar provision tying in RSLs.
Q31 Mr Betts: I also had the point made
to me from people in my constituency who have got sons and daughters
on the waiting list for a house, that if you are more generous
in what you offer to homeless households you increase people's
likelihood of becoming homeless in some cases because rather than
wait 10 or 15 years on the waiting list the only way to get priority
for a home in a nice area (if authorities are prepared to allocate
homeless families a cross-section of their housing stock) is to
become homeless and indeed if you become homeless then to wait
and see if you get a nice property before deciding whether you
are going to take it up. Is there any evidence of that?
Professor Fitzpatrick: It is a
complex one. I have looked at this point in detail recently for
another piece of work for ODPP. Homelessness agencies and academics
would argue that there is no evidence of that but it has to be
said that nobody has looked very hard for the evidence of that
in the homelessness world. I think that it would be difficult
to argue that there is not some kind of incentive effect within
the homeless legislation but, that said, I think it is very important
to keep it in context, to keep it in perspective. The very extensive
qualitative evidence we have about homeless families and others
who go through the homelessness process is that they try very
hard to find other solutions before they present themselves to
local authorities, by and large. The other piece of key evidence
that we have is that the homeless persons legislation—I
have done quite extensive work on this—does act as a very
good proxy for those in the greatest housing need. We do not have
solid evidence of deliberately making yourself homeless in order
to gain access to council housing but that is not the same as
arguing it never happens. The evidence that we do have suggests
that it is not the key factor which drives homelessness and it
is also what the intentionality provisions are intended to capture.
It is the reason why in Scotland priority need is going to gradually
be abolished and the connection is going to be suspended but intentionality
has been kept to address that particular issue.
Q32 Mr Betts: Is there any research into
monitoring what happens in different authorities with different
policies and approaches?
Professor Fitzpatrick: In term
of intentionality particularly?
Q33 Mr Betts: In terms of what stock
they are prepared to offer homeless families, whether it is the
readily available poorest stock or whether they offer a range
of different provision.
Professor Fitzpatrick: We know
that there are one-offer only policies in many parts of both England
and Scotland. Other local authorities with more extensive/low-demand
housing stock tend to be more generous in that respect, so we
know there is quite a variety.
Chairman: Sorry to interrupt but we are
running a bit late. We have got two more topics we want to cover
so could we have very short answers please. Chris Mole?
Q34 Chris Mole: What is your view of
the success of the Supporting People programme in helping homeless
people?
Mr Pleace: The very short answer
is it is too early to say. The existing evidence base on Supporting
People is not as strong as it could be. There has not been a great
deal of research done on floating support services like tenancy
sustainment. There is not a great deal of research being done
on supportive housing solutions which move people on in terms
of looking at the long-term impact in terms of sustained exits
from homelessness. All the research that CHP has done, and the
research done by other people which has looked at various forms
of supported housing or floating support to homeless households,
does show that it has a general beneficial effect in terms of
helping people who would otherwise be unable to sustain a tenancy
or whose tenancy would be at risk following homelessness because
there might be issues around their short-term coping skills. A
particular issue for homeless people and homeless families as
well is wider engagement with the welfare state. You are talking
about sometimes quite marginalised populations who might find
it difficult to articulate themselves and who may not know where
to go. Housing-related support funded by Supporting People seems
to have a very significant role in relation to registration with
a GP, ensuring that the range of benefits to which a household
is entitled is being claimed and ensuring that they have got access
to the other kinds of service that they need. That kind of low-level
support to assist and engage with a range of services is very
important and also it can be very significant in terms of where
a household is quite marginalised, quite inarticulate, quite alienated
(as some homeless households are) in that they can help that household
engage with the social landlord.
Q35 Chris Mole: What would be examples
of successful innovation in this area which you could share?
Mr Pleace: The main one we have
worked on is the Shelter Homeless to Home project which was a
pilot project which we evaluated which provided a low-intensity
floating support service to homeless families who were characterised
by vulnerability. These were quite often families who had experienced
recurrent homelessness, and had been homeless two or three times
before. That low-intensity support level service, which was characterised
by being highly flexible in terms of the range of support that
it could offer, helped with everything from helping households
decorate their property through to low-level emotional support,
helping households access benefits, helping households access
other services that they needed. It showed that that kind of service
could be effective. Actually it was one of the first pieces of
research that showed the extent to which homeless families might
be characterised by some of the support needs that we also associate
with homelessness.
Q36 Chris Mole: What would you say about
the quality of services for people living in institutional settings
who become homeless? What contribution is there from those services
to reduce the "revolving door" for repeat homelessness?
Mr Pleace: We have done a lot
of work around looked after children and there has been a lot
of innovation and support because we know about the strong over-representation
of looked after children. That is not Supporting People because
they are too young to be funded under that programme. However
there is work on youth homelessness and work on former offenders
and things like that, and we have got a big assumption within
public policy at the moment which is that anybody who has come
from an institutional setting is going to have fewer coping skills
because they have been in that institutional setting. We have
got some evidence around youth homeless services that have been
effective interventions. There is not a great deal of research
around services to former offenders. There is some evidence suggesting
that perhaps there is an association between being in the armed
forces and homelessness for which, again, there is no strong evidence.
But beyond youth homelessness we have not really got much evidence
around institutional services.
Q37 Mr O'Brien: Finally, can we ask about
data collection and the understanding of data. Some people suggest
that it only benefits academics like yourselves but other people
are calling for improvements in data collection. What do you think
are the main deficiencies at the present time?
Mr Pleace: The main deficiency
in P1E is that P1E measures decisions by local authorities but
it does not really record the characteristics of the households
that are becoming homeless. We do not know very much at all about
the composition of those households because it is not really recorded
in any detail, unlike the Scottish system, HL1, which does collect
basic information on a household-by-household basis. The data
we have got is the monitoring of two things. It is the monitoring
of the decisions that local authorities take and it is an account
conducted on a quarterly basis of how many households are in temporary
accommodation.
Chairman: Right, on that
note can I thank you very much for your evidence.
| 
