Examination of Witnesses (Questions 217-219)
MS JENNY
EDWARDS, MR
HOWARD SINCLAIR,
MR JEREMY
DREW AND
MR TARIG
HILAL
7 DECEMBER 2004
Q217 Chairman: Can I welcome you to the
third session of the Committee's inquiry into homelessness
and can I ask you to identify yourselves for the record.
Ms Edwards: I am Jenny Edwards,
the Chief Executive of Homeless Link.
Mr Sinclair: I am Howard Sinclair.
I work for the Broadway Homelessness Organisation, but I am here
representing Homeless Link's Board.
Mr Drew: My name is Jeremy Drew.
I am General Manager of Portsmouth Foyer and I am here to represent
the Foyer Federation.
Mr Hilal: I am Tarig Hilal and
I am Policy Manager of Crisis.
Q218 Chairman: Does anyone want to say
anything by way of introduction or are you happy for us to go
straight to questions?
Mr Hilal: I would like to say
a few words. Crisis has been working with homeless people for
33 years now. For the last 27, ever since the introduction of
the 1977 Housing and Homelessness Act, we have been working to
plug the gap in that legislation and we have been working with
single homeless people. There are two things that we would like
really to communicate today. The first is that there is an issue
in this country about our understanding of the full scale of homelessness.
Put very simply, we do not have a full picture of it and one of
the things we want to see is a census, a count of the number of
single homeless people. The other is that single homelessness
needs to be made a priority. I think that is the focus of our
submission and is what we would like to communicate.
Mr Drew: I would just like to
say as a point of introduction really that I am here, as I said,
on behalf of the Foyer Federation and that represents 130 foyers
across the UK which provide accommodation integrated with education,
training and support to 10,000 young people every year.
Mr Sinclair: I am here on behalf
Homeless Link. Homeless Link is an umbrella organisation for over
500 agencies across the country. It is very hard to quantify,
but we reckon that those agencies support over 30,000 people each
day in a variety of services and to meet a variety of needs. We
work in partnership with everyone, statutory, voluntary, as that
is the only way we know how to do our business and for us there
are two main issues. One is the supply of affordable and accessible
housing for people and the second is, for those 30,000-plus people,
making sure that we identify and meet those needs clearly in a
way that is most effective, so those are the issues.
Chairman: Thank you very much. Since
there are four of you at the table, if you agree with each other,
you do not need to say anything, but if you disagree, please step
in.
Q219 Mr Cummings: Following the Homelessness
Act of 2002, there were new categories added to the priority needs
list. Would you tell the Committee how the new list has helped
the homelessness situation throughout the United Kingdom and whether
it has in fact created any new problems?
Ms Edwards: I think the legislation
was very definitely a step forward and we can see some of the
impacts of that in helping people to come in from off the streets,
people who before were perhaps turned away without help. However,
I think it has created problems in its wake in that then people
are held in temporary accommodation and there is essentially a
bed blockage if there is nowhere for them to move on to. I think
the other problem with the legislation is that although it did
strengthen the duty of local authorities to help people who were
not homeless in a statutory sense, that often is not followed
up in any real and consistent way, and I think you will see from
some of the written evidence that that is a general perception.
There are about 75,000 people a year who are accepted as being
homeless, but are not statutorily homeless because they are not
seen as being in priority need or they are described as "intentionally
homeless". Their paths after that are not tracked by local
authorities and they are often people who turn up in need of help
and support at our member organisations.
Mr Drew: I think the change has
of course introduced and made available to a wider range of people
the option to be declared homeless and then given assistance and
support, and I would welcome that. Particularly of course it has
brought into the arena 16- and 17-year-olds who hitherto had quite
considerable difficulty in accessing support, but I think there
is still an issue around the areas of responsibility for local
authorities. I think there is an issue around ensuring that the
young people's needs are properly assessed and, particularly,
looking at the issue of young people's needs being very severe,
being quite acute really, and that needs to be recognised in the
way that local authorities are dealing with it. One of the ways
in which we think that could be addressed is establishing a unit
that specifically looks at the single homelessness question, but
also I think it raises the issue of how we can all work together
to ensure that we look at prevention as well as dealing with the
issue of homelessness as it is, and I think it is a very important
area which we would like to see introduced as a performance indicator
for local authorities.
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