Examination of Witnesses (Questions 38-59)
MR ADAM
SAMPSON AND
MR PATRICK
SOUTH
26 OCTOBER 2004
Q38 Chairman: May I welcome you to the
second session this morning of the Committee's inquiry into homelessness
and ask you to identify yourselves for the record.
Mr Sampson: My name is Adam Sampson
and I am the Director of Shelter.
Mr South: I am Patrick South,
Deputy Director of Communication and Campaigns at Shelter.
Q39 Chairman: Do you want to say anything
by way of introduction or are you happy for us to go straight
into questions?
Mr Sampson: Just very briefly,
first of all we are grateful for the opportunity to give verbal
evidence to supplement our written evidence. Our general approach
to this is informed by a recognition of some of the very welcome
improvements and advances that have taken place in homelessness
and homelessness policy over the past few years—the driving
down of the number of people sleeping on the streets, the very
welcome ending of the use of bed and breakfast accommodation for
homeless families with children. Those things are achievements
of which government should be proud. Set against that, however,
there are long-term structural issues which do cause us considerable
concern. We have the rise that has already been alluded to in
the use of temporary accommodation and for increasing periods
of time and more pertinently we also have structural difficulties
in the housing market nationally which will in our judgment, if
not tackled to a greater extent than at the moment there seem
to be plans to do, only exacerbate long-term issues to do with
homelessness. Those are our major concerns.
Chairman: Thank you very much. Clive
Betts?
Q40 Mr Betts: You say in your evidence
that there are lots of different measures of homelessness none
of which provide a complete picture, particularly the official
measure of people who are unintentionally homeless and in priority
need. What is the complete picture, how serious is it, and does
the Government understand the seriousness?
Mr Sampson: Frankly, if we knew
the complete picture we would have said it. There is no central
numerical account of the full picture of homelessness. Our criticism
of the over-reliance on the official figure about people accepted
as homeless is that it merely reflects local authorities' judgments
of one particular manifestation of homelessness. Those judgments
themselves may be influenced to a significant degree by the fact
that in accepting somebody as unintentionally homeless and in
priority need, local authorities are imposing on themselves a
duty to do something about it, so, plainly, one may question the
extent to which those judgments are unbiased. There are no reliable
figures on the number of people who do not fall into those categories,
the number of single homeless people for example, the hidden homeless,
and so on and so forth. There is considerable debate within 200,000
or 300,000 as to what those numbers really are.
Q41 Mr Betts: So if government came to
you and said, "Right, we are going to change the way we collect
homelessness statistics, we are looking for your recommendation,"
what would it be?
Mr Sampson: It would be difficult
for me to give a comprehensive answer at this point. Plainly,
you would need to look at a very comprehensive and very complex
set of measures. There are definitional issues which are important
here. Homelessness is not a single manifestation; it may be rooflessness,
it may be some other manifestation of housing need. One would
need to engage in quite a complex process of determining what
exactly constituted homelessness in the first place because homelessness
and rooflessness are plainly not the same thing
Mr South: Can I follow that up?
As part of your question you asked whether the Government has
a full picture and understanding of homelessness. I think the
bit of government that deals with homelessness, the Homelessness
Directorate, has made a lot of progress in terms of bed and breakfast,
rough sleeping, et cetera, as Adam said. The report that the Social
Exclusion Unit published recently recognised that the numbers
in temporary accommodation is one of the five key things holding
back government progress on that agenda. The Child Poverty Review
also recognised homelessness as part of the child poverty agenda.
So I think there are signs in government more widely that the
homelessness issue is being recognised. I think the jury is still
out in terms of the government taking that on as a big issue,
and if we are to get to grips with the numbers in temporary accommodation,
the Homelessness Directorate cannot do that on their own. They
need wider support from within ODPM and political leadership from
the top. There are signs that homelessness is being recognised
but the jury is still out as to whether at the very top of government
it is enough of a priority.
Q42 Mr Betts: I can see how you can get
a measure of those people who present themselves as homeless or
who are deemed to be potentially homeless because they are there
and they are recorded. When you come down to young people who
are not in a priority category or who do not present themselves
because they are never going to get housing, there is no way of
measuring that, is there?
Mr Sampson: There is not. It is
a genuine problem and, frankly, neither Shelter nor anybody else
has the answer. What I am anxious not to do here, though, is to
get hung up on questions about whether the number of people in
the category to which you just referred is genuinely 200,000 or
400,000, and it could be anywhere in that range. The truth remains
that even if we knew how many there were, there is nothing around
in terms of government policy in the short-term which is likely
to meet their needs. Counting the need may be a useful academic
exercise but counting the need completely disassociates it from
any likelihood of meeting those needs. It seems to us to be a
rather sterile exercise.
Q43 Mr Sanders: Your evidence shows that
much of the increase in homelessness acceptances between 1996-97
and 2003-04 is homelessness caused by parents and friends "no
longer able to accommodate". Why do you think these causes
are of such growing importance?
Mr Sampson: That reflects again
the analysis which is done at the point at which those individuals
are accepted as homeless. I think that category masks a considerable
complexity and richness about what is actually going on underneath
it. Some of that may be genuine relationship breakdown with no
other contingent causes. Some of that, however, may mask unacceptable
levels of housing need. Giving you an example, there seems to
be a considerable correlation between homelessness and overcrowding
in some areas of the country, so you will have situations, say,
in some parts of East London whereby you have three generations
crammed into relatively small local authority accommodation, and
under those circumstances, it does not take very much in terms
of family stress to create a situation where homelessness is caused.
That may not be a manifestation of a dysfunctional family situation;
it may be a manifestation of housing need which is then expressed
through a claim "they will not let us stay in the house anymore"
when the individual gets to the local authority homelessness unit,
and therefore the response to that may need to vary quite widely.
This brings us to some concerns about the preventative agenda
(which we thoroughly support in principle) on the part of local
authorities which, for example, forces mediation on a family in
that situation. Where there is a genuine family breakdown and
that could be repaired through mediation that seems to me to be
a perfectly reasonable approach to take.
Q44 Chairman: Even if the household is
grossly overcrowded?
Mr Sampson: No that is exactly
the point I was going to make. Where there is no gross overcrowding
and it may be that there genuinely is a family breakdown then
plainly mediation may well be the solution. Where in fact the
real cause is overcrowding then to force people into mediation
seems to us to be fundamentally misplaced.
Q45 Mr Sanders: Do you think there is
sometimes collusion between parents and their offspring or between
friends to get registered as homeless and so jump the housing
list?
Mr Sampson: I think the answer
that you were given in the evidence previously seems to us to
reflect the reality of the situation. Of course in theory that
may happen and I think everybody has to acknowledge the possibility
of that happening. Where in practice you have a situation where
having your name on the council housing list is not likely ever
to produce a tenancy, one can see there may be some incentive
to "go the homeless route". On the other hand, we do
not have any real evidence, as was referred to earlier, of that
happening in any major way. Indeed, given the difficulties in
getting accepted as homeless and given the fact that in areas
of high housing demand you may well then have to endure unacceptably
poor temporary accommodation for a considerable period of time
and then get a letting which is hardly the most desirable in the
world; the incentives are not as great as might otherwise be assumed.
Q46 Chris Mole: You have said the number
of intentionally homeless decisions has more than doubled since
1997 and that some authorities may be interpreting intentionality
very strictly to reduce the numbers they have to house. At the
same time some neighbours think it is quite hard to get evictions
by local authorities for anti-social behaviour. What is reasonable
behaviour by local authorities in this circumstance and what influences
local authority behaviour in this area?
Mr South: Possibly the best way
to answer that question is to say that, in terms of the work Shelter's
services do, our advisers deal with an awful lot of intentionally
homeless decisions and they are very often successful in overturning
them. Anecdotally, some of our housing aid centres would say they
overturn roughly 50% of those decisions. Obviously that is not
something that can happen across the board. That is only going
to happen where Shelter has a service or there is another service
in place to challenge those decisions. However, I think that degree
of decisions being challenged and overturned gives some kind of
indication that intentional homeless decisions are being made
when they should not be. The legislation was originally introduced,
as was referred to in the previous evidence, to act as a disincentive
to stop people falsely applying as homeless. We think now with
that evidence, particularly in the last couple of years where
intentional homeless decisions have gone up by another 50% (which
coincides with the introduction of the new legislation), that
this is something that needs to be looked at that, particularly
when you have got intentionality decisions being made because
of previous criminal convictions or rent arrears; because that
is undermining the spirit of the legislation and is actually very
much against the policy intentions of the Government.
Q47 Chris Mole: A housing authority is
supposed to refer intentionally homeless families with children
to social services. You have been critical of the response by
some social services departments about what they should be doing.
Given that it is clearly undesirable for children to be taken
into care, what more should social services be doing for such
families?
Mr South: Just to say first of
all we are very grateful for the amendment you tabled in the committee
on the Children Bill on that. It was a very interesting debate
because you had all three political parties in a rare show of
unity backing the case for housing to be part of that Bill and
for much closer co-operation between housing and the new children's
services that the Bill will be introducing. What we are arguing
is that there are duties currently on social services in that
situation, and they should be carrying out an assessment of the
children's needs, and there are powers for them to provide assistance.
We are not saying that that should be a back-door route into social
housing. What we are saying is that where you have got homeless
families with children in need, some kind of response should be
happening in that situation. Very often at the moment it is not.
It is an issue about practice. I should say that some authorities
do have protocols in place and practice is good; other authorities
do not. What should never happen is that, just because a family
is homeless, they should be faced with having children taken into
care in that situation. What it means very often is that those
families are forced into very desperate housing situations and
circumstances. According to our Shelterline service, a woman slept
rough in a park with her children for three or four nights because
she got no help at all from social services. What we are looking
for, and what we would look for the government to be doing, is
to send a much stronger message out to social services that they
have a role in that situation that they need to fulfil.
Q48 Mr Betts: Everyone probably agrees
we need to spend more money dealing with the homeless situation
but how should we spend it?
Mr Sampson: There are two mechanisms
for spending it. Plainly we could spend money supporting individuals
with the sort of support needs that were talked about earlier,
supporting them to maintain their existing tenancies if they have
them or re-settling them back into settled accommodation if that
is available. That in the short term is a priority. But in the
long term, again taking the evidence that we heard previously,
which accords absolutely with our understanding of the situation,
homelessness is a manifestation and result of structural difficulties
in the housing market and the long-term under-investment in the
provision of affordable housing, particularly social housing for
rent. If there is one priority for government spending, while
trying to maintain services for those who are in housing need
at the moment, it is long-term investment in social housing for
rent.
Q49 Mr Betts: Basically it is long-term
investment in housing and then provision of support services for
particular categories of homeless people with particular needs?
Mr Sampson: Absolutely, yes.
Chris Mole: You say that too much investment
is going into key worker housing and not enough into traditional
social housing for rent. What should be the balance of funding
bearing in mind the danger that there might be more homeless people
having houses but not having teachers for their children or police
officers to deal with issues in their area?
Q50 Chairman: Or perhaps more important
the social workers that you have just criticised for not getting
stuck in.
Mr Sampson: I do not think what
we have said is that we do not support spending money on key workers.
What we questioned is—given a limited pot of money—the
Government's priorities in how they have decided to spend that
money. In the key worker debate it is very easy to talk about
this merely in terms of doctors, nurses—I was going to say
politically popular people, but then you introduced social workers
into it, and I speak as a former social worker myself—but
equally important if we are going to have decent hospitals and
schools is to have the hospital cleaners and the school caretakers
and the dinner ladies and so on and so forth without which none
of our public services can function. The key worker debate cannot
get caught up in the sterile question of provision of houses for
middle class people and forget the poor people; it is a continuum.
Our criticisms are two-fold. First of all, some of the way that
some of the money has been spent on key workers, it seems to us,
is misplaced. If you look at the cost-effectiveness of some of
the schemes, for example simply to give particular categories
of key workers grants to compete on the housing market for purchase,
the long-term impact of that is merely to fuel house price inflation.
It does nothing to increase the supply and availability of housing
in the longer term. It increases house price inflation. In my
work with the Home Ownership Task Force last year, quite a lot
of that discussion included considerable criticism of the current
ways of subsidising key workers, which are not very cost-effective.
The second question is a question about whether we genuinely are
right in prioritising housing aspiration over housing need. In
the end, if we have limited government subsidy, it seems to us
to be somewhat perverse to use that subsidy to improve the position
of people who have housing but are aspiring to better types of
housing over people who, by and large, have no access to housing
at all.
Q51 Mr O'Brien: There is some evidence
of housing associations not co-operating with allocating accommodation
to the homeless. What is your experience of that and what can
we do about it?
Mr South: I think the key words
you use are "some evidence". It is a complex picture
and certainly Shelter was very concerned in the late 1990s when
you had a situation where homelessness and numbers in temporary
accommodation were rising, and at the same time housing associations
were making fewer lettings available to homeless households. I
think that situation has turned round to some extent and the figures
bear that out, but it is very difficult, when you have got very
different local circumstances in different parts of the country,
to look at a national figure and take very much from that. What
we are concerned about is not just a question of housing associations.
It is very often the nomination agreements that are made between
local authorities and housing associations that are not adequate.
Also, housing associations often operate local lettings policies
that can disadvantage homeless people when they do not take certain
categories of people, so it is a complex picture. However, in
a situation where you have got record numbers of people living
in temporary accommodation, we certainly think that housing associations
and the Housing Corporation need to look at whether they are doing
enough. I think it is a very interesting and important issue for
this inquiry to explore with your other witnesses.
Q52 Mr O'Brien: Have you a view of any
circumstances where housing associations would be right to refuse
homeless people?
Mr South: The Homelessness Act
puts down very clear criteria about when people should and should
not be accepted into social housing and we think that should act
as the guide—the Housing Minister at the time, Lord Falconer,
was very clear about those circumstances. We do think that it
is often the case that people are refused access to social housing
in circumstances where they should be allowed access.
Q53 Mr O'Brien: Are you saying it should
be left to the private sector then to take up the undesirables?
Mr South: That in itself is a
very important question in the sense that if the social housing
sector is not taking people with complex needs then where are
they going? This Committee did an inquiry into the Housing Bill
and many of those recommendations have been taken on as the Bill
has been going through Parliament. But one of the issues that
came up there is that if you are leaving it to private sector
landlords to take the strain on that, very often the problem is
simply moved on and it can be magnified in that situation. We
come back to the principle that very often, for people with complex
social needs, social housing should be where they are housed.
Q54 Mr O'Brien: Do you think that choice-based
lettings schemes have helped or hindered homeless people's access
to permanent housing?
Mr South: I think the jury is
out on that. Obviously choice-based lettings are being piloted
at the moment. We have argued very strongly, and we are doing
some work on this, that they should benefit homeless people and
that homeless people should get choice over where they live. That
is something that we need to watch, see what transpires through
the pilot schemes and keep an eye on.
Q55 Mr O'Brien: How long have the pilot
schemes been running?
Mr South: I do not know. I could
not answer on that but I think they are getting towards the point
at which the evaluations should start coming through in the not-too-distant
future.
Q56 Chairman: Some homeless people are
not particularly well organised and they are not particularly
capable of working with bureaucracy. Choice-based lettings discriminate
against them, do they not?
Mr South: It does not have to,
if homeless people are given the information and support et cetera
to be able to make an informed choice. That should be something
that we aim for.
Q57 Chairman: And stock transfer companies
are obviously now responsible to their existing tenants and to
their business plan. Does that mean that they are less sympathetic
to homeless groups?
Mr Sampson: I think there is some
anecdotal evidence to indicate that, yes. Where we look at the
range of pressures on housing associations, one does find that
some of the requirements from government—for example to
drive down the level of rent arrears and the anti-social behaviour
agenda—and pressure from their investors and their existing
tenants, all may conspire to pressurise them or to make them more
risk averse in deciding who they take. Over a period of time that
might quite naturally reduce the number of homeless individuals
that they are willing to house. That pattern is not across the
board. I think the important thing here is to say that the anecdotal
evidence we have found is that there is a range of very good housing
associations but a number of them seem to be less willing to take
people whom they may regard as more troublesome.
Q58 Mr Sanders: You express some concerns
about the way councils house homeless households outside their
districts. What are those problems?
Mr South: I think in London certainly
the evidence is that around 15% of placements now are out of borough.
We did a survey of 400 homeless households and the evidence that
showed is that homeless children in that situation are missing
55 school days a year on average. They are very often placed a
long way from their school so the choice is to have a very, very
long journey to school or you have to find a new one. One in 10
parents in that survey had no school place for their child at
all. So there are educational problems and dislocation there.
There is also distance from family support networks. I think the
thing about temporary accommodation (and you asked this of your
previous witnesses) that we would want to stress is the insecurity
and instability that it causes. As well as the numbers increasing,
the length of time that people are spending in temporary accommodation
has virtually tripled since 1997. In London the average is 381
days. In some cases families are spending two or three years in
that situation. You arrive in temporary accommodation, you
are told it is a temporary situation, and two or three years later
you are still there. It is that instability and that insecurity
coupled with placements a long way away from your home areas that
are the real cause of the problems and damage that temporary
accommodation causes.
Q59 Mr Sanders: Is it not inevitable
that there will be out-of-area accommodation and authorities will
have to use it sometimes?
Mr South: To some extent, and
in London certainly, which is where you get most of it. Obviously
there are problems with the supply and location of temporary accommodation
within those boroughs. Anecdotally, there is evidence that in
other areas of the country, out-of-area placements are becoming
more common. That should not be the case necessarily. One of the
key points we want to get across today is that local authorities
should be more strategic, not just in their overall housing strategy,
but their use of temporary accommodation. Their homelessness strategy
should help that by giving a clearer picture of levels of homelessness
and where that homelessness has taken place, and then they ought
to be able to procure through private leasing, temporary accommodation
in those neighbourhoods so people do not have to go out of area.
| 
