Communities and Local Government CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by The Salvation Army Homelessness Services
Summary
1. The general experience of The Salvation Army’s service users with the private rented sector is a positive one. On the whole, local authorities have been able to successfully place homeless individuals in private rented housing, which has enabled those ready to move on into independent living to do so swiftly, whilst freeing places in supported accommodation for vulnerable homeless individuals. However, our service users have been confronted with four main issues in the private rented housing sector, namely: (i) substandard quality of properties; (ii) high costs of deposits and, in some local areas, high levels of rents; (iii) illegal evictions by rogue landlords; and (iv) inadequate length of tenancy.
2. In order to address these issues and ensure that the private rented sector constitutes a suitable option for homeless individuals to move on into independent living, The Salvation Army recommends the following:
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv)
(v)
(vi)
The Salvation Army: About us
3. The Salvation Army is a Christian church and registered charity which began in the East End of London in 1865. Our services are open to all who need them, regardless of ethnicity, religion, gender or sexual orientation. Our work with homeless people has been an integral part of our mission for more than 130 years. We are committed to working with and supporting vulnerable and marginalised people to empower them to change their lives, rebuild relationships and make a positive and meaningful transition back into society. To do so, we provide a wide range of services to homeless individuals, including supported accommodation, non-residential homeless centres, addiction support, skills updating and training, and social enterprise opportunities.
4. The evidence submitted below results from interviews with Resettlement Coordinators and Centre Managers of The Salvation Army’s lifehouses, which are centres providing residential services for homeless individuals, in three locations: Devonport House Lifehouse in Plymouth, Cambria House Lifehouse in the London Borough of Camden, and Booth House Lifehouse in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.
The Quality of Private Rented Housing
5. Our service users have encounters cases of substandard properties across the three areas covered in this submission—with issues including insufficient size, need of repair and maintenance, and non-compliance with housing health and safety regulations. Yet poor quality housing has remained a relatively marginal issue for our service users, thanks to individual local authorities’ efforts. In this regard, we particularly welcome Camden’s Pathways Move-on scheme, which has been set up by Camden Council to help residents who have been identified as ready to leave supported accommodation move into settled independent accommodation. As part of the scheme, the quality of private rented housing is monitored, and issues with housing quality are reported to the Move-on team, which then addresses them. Whilst we particularly welcome individual local authorities’ efforts, we recognise that such good practices may not be followed by all local authorities, and that housing quality is likely to be a greater issue in areas without specific schemes in place. In view of the resilience of substandard housing quality, further efforts are needed to ensure that private rented housing is of adequate quality across the UK, as stipulated in the Housing Health and Safety Rating System Regulations 2005 and the Housing Act 2004. We thus recommend strengthening partnerships between local authorities’ private housing teams, landlords and homeless support services providers such as The Salvation Army, to flag up and address issues of substandard housing in a more effective manner.
Levels of Rent Within the Private Rented Sector
6. The cost of deposit is often very difficult to meet for our service users, and constitutes a barrier to moving on into private rented housing. We welcome local authorities’ initiatives to cover deposit costs for individuals ready to leave supported accommodation or to help them obtaining a loan to cover deposit costs, as in the London boroughs of Tower Hamlets and Camden. We also welcome the expansion of schemes such as the Crisis Private Rented Sector Access Development Programme, which assists single, non-statutory homeless people to overcome financial barriers to renting, covering deposit costs and providing upfront rent payments, in addition to providing support to both tenants and landlords. These initiatives enable individuals to swiftly move on into private rented housing. We recommend disseminating practices of covering deposit costs for individuals ready to leave supported accommodation to move into the private sector, or of helping them to obtain loans at preferential rates to cover deposit costs, across local authorities.
7. In local authorities such as Camden, high levels of rent force our service users to move out of their local area, which prevents them from readily accessing much-needed family and community support. As such, the costs of displacing individuals from their local areas are likely to be particularly high in the long run, as relocation may jeopardise successful transition to independent living. We thus recommend that local authorities encourage landlords to charge affordable rents, particularly through the medium of landlord associations, by providing them with incentives and information on the benefits of affordable rent levels, and by setting up landlord accreditation schemes to promote good practice amongst landlords.
8. A relatively common practice amongst landlords—which was noted in the Borough of Tower Hamlets—is to automatically charge the amount of housing benefits as rent, even though the market value of the accommodation might be lower. Such practice effectively prevents many individuals who are willing to work to do so, as they would not afford this level of rent with their salary. We thus recommend that local authorities help individuals currently on benefits who are willing to work to pay their rent to renegotiate rent levels with their landlords, and encourage landlords to charge them fair, affordable rents, in particular through landlord accreditation schemes.
Regulation of Landlords
9. Before accessing The Salvation Army’s services, some of our service users have been subjected to illegal evictions—which were reported in Plymouth and Tower Hamlets—despite the provisions made by the Protection from Eviction Act 1977. To prevent such practice, local authorities have put schemes in place to deal with rogue landlords. In the Borough of Camden, the Move-on team places our service users with reliable landlords, who are regularly monitored. In Plymouth, we work closely with landlords, and we have established close links with organisations such as the South West Landlord Association, to ensure that our service users get a good service. In turn, Tower Hamlets runs a landlord accreditation scheme to increase landlords’ knowledge and awareness on key property management issues and to improve tenants’ health and safety. In view of the success of these initiatives, we recommend that schemes to deal with rogue landlords, including landlords’ accreditation and regular monitoring, be disseminated across local authorities. We also recommend that local authorities adopt good practices to deal with rogue landlords, as outlined in Dealing with Rogue Landlords: A Guide for Local Authorities (2012), produced by the Department for Communities and Local Government, and that they disseminate information to local residents about their rights as private tenants.
Tenancy Agreements and Length and Security of Tenure
10. Short-term tenure (of less than twelve months) is a particularly concerning issue for our service users, who need sufficient stability to establish independent lives for themselves. Indeed, a widespread concern amongst our service users is that private rented housing is only temporary, unsecured accommodation, and that their landlords might ask them to leave at any time. Our Lifehouses offer a number of services to address these concerns. In particular, we offer preparation and positive information about private rented housing (such as information on housing options and independent living), and we ensure that the person is ready to move on and is engaging with appropriate services. To ensure a successful transition from supported accommodation to independent living, these measures must be underpinned by the assurance that tenures are of sufficient length to enable individuals to settle in their new independent lives. At present, this assurance is lacking, in particular for assured shorthold tenants (who constitute the majority of tenants) and occupiers with basic protection, who may be evicted by their landlords without any reason if given written notice, and for excluded tenants, who may be evicted after being given verbal notice. We thus recommend that the length of tenure be set at a minimum of twelve months for individuals ready to leave supported accommodation.
January 2013