Previous Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |
Baroness Rendell of Babergh: It may be that the provisions in this amendment are already covered in the Bill. But to my mind, the new ones recognise and emphasise that not all local authorities show the right levels of concern and care for clients' needs. They aim to secure basic minimum standards. It is not sufficiently recognised how many applicants suffer from intense vulnerability and confusion. They speak and understand English inadequately. As the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, said, some people cannot read. They are confronted by problems which to us might simply be time-consuming irritants but they can be frightening, particularly to those whose self-esteem is already badly shaken by hardship and humiliation.
I wish to give two examples which come from articles written by sheltered housing advice centres. The first reads:
The Earl of Listowel: I rise to speak to the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock. The Minister reminded the Committee earlier this afternoon of the importance of prevention. The concern that is being raised here is that the needs of non-priority homeless people are not being met. In my experience at Centrepoint I have come across young people with mental health problems who have slipped through the system, and occasionally people with learning difficulties. We know that more than 4,500 families with children are not classed as priority needs because of decisions about their intention with regard to their homelessness. It is hard to decide what people's intentions are. The process is notoriously complex and can be very harsh but we are still dealing with families with children.
Under the current arrangement how can one ensure that there is an adequate service? That is what concerns me. I am not sure whether the amendment or whether further strengthening the duty on local authorities is the way to reach that. There is clearly great inconsistency. I heard only this afternoon from a homelessness agency about young people being given just a telephone number; if they are given a list of hostels it may have the wrong opening times and they may make the journey to the hostel and find the doors are shut, or the information may be out of date. If they make a telephone call to the hosteland these are now referral only rather than direct accessthey have wasted the money on the telephone call. They also feel that they are struggling and it is counterproductive. This is a key area.
Young people are drifting into the centre of London where there are many homeless agencies which are keen to see that they stay, if possible, in their local authority. It is better that the local authority should help them before they come into the centre of town and become subject to all its problems. There needs to be a uniform, high-quality level of assessment, up-to-date advice and, if there needs to be a review, an explanation of why they have been denied priority homelessness and their right to a review of that decision.
There are examples of local authorities that have failed in London. So many young people come from Lambeth but very few from Tower Hamlets. Why is
that? They are similar authorities with similar problems, but somehow the homeless persons units appear not to be functioning so well in Lambeth. There clearly needs to be better monitoring, training and support of staff in homeless persons units and the best practice there needs to be disseminated and a consistent service provided throughout.That job is tremendously demanding, especially in those areas where there is very little accommodation. Those staff have to be very creative in their responses to people. Often this does not happen. For example, a receptionist told an applicant that without identification and a letter providing proof that he was homeless there was nothing they could do for him. In another authority that person met a homeless persons officer who expressed genuine concern for the applicant's well-being. The attitude is very important.
Is the Minister clear that funding for the implementation of the Bill#8 million, as I understand it will be sufficient to enable the better dissemination of good practice and secondment between, perhaps, different local authorities and homelessness agencies? The noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, mentioned the importance of ensuring that best-value regime applies in a focused way to raising the standards in this area and that there is a strategic goal nationally in the national homelessness policy in ensuring a high standard of service. She also said that there should be stronger guidance in the local authority strategy in relation to the Bill. I look forward to the Minister's response to those ideas.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: We are dealing with people who are desperate, people who are under attack and people who do not know which way to turnI am talking about the staff, not the applicants. One of the most wretched aspects of being a local councillor is dealing with housing, and one of the most desperate of desperate situations is trying to give assurances, with no resources at all, to people who are desperately in need of just a modicum of hope.
We are asking the Minister to consider whether he can do anything more than he is already doing in this Bill and in other ways. The Minister has a dilemma in leaving power and freedom to local authorities to determine how they exercise their priorities and their budgets. That will inevitably mean that in some areas there will be a shortfall in what we might think they ought to do. Having been a local councillor, like many Members of the Committee, I know about the competing claims on local authority housing resources.
In common with other Members of the Committee, I have a position with the Local Government Association. All that we and the Minister can do is try to engender a little more understanding and kindness where it does not exist. I do not believe that there are many occasions when there is no understanding of the needs of the desperate homeless or badly housed people. Very often, the officers of a council must be torn and end up being over-sympathetic and perhaps
leading people on, assuring them that there is a solution and that if they wait a little longer or do something else, they will get it. The fact is that there is a shortage of accommodation. The right-to-buy legislation has resulted in the stock of housing that was once available to a council drying up over the past 20 years. The remaining stock is diminishing all the time. I do not take kindly to people arguing that certain things can be done, when, by political decision, oneonly oneof the weapons that was available has been taken away from the authority.I have dealt with many wretched circumstances. Many times I left my surgery as an MP and cried outside in the car at the helplessness and hopelessness of some cases. However, that will not solve the problem. Eventually, we need a greater availability of accommodation and an understanding by the people who are homeless or in wretched homes that there are limits and that everything that can be done is being done.
I hear what my noble friend Lady Rendell has told us. We want to hear from the Minister that the aims of the amendment are already dealt with in the Bill. The Minister will be well served if he takes on board the heart as well as the brain of the Members of the Committee. Those of us who live well and are housed well and know about homelessness feel more than anybody else the helplessness of the people who cannot help themselves. When they come to the council, the very least that a council can do is to have properly trained people available.
Rape at one time was treated simply as a crime. It is a crime, but there are ways in which the victim of the rape can be made to feel that at least there is an understanding of their condition. The same can happen for those who are in desperate need of housing. My experience is primarily in the London Borough of Enfield and in Edmonton. Because I am joint president of the Local Government Association I am conscious that even within London there are variations. The Minister has already referred to consultation with council leaders and councils. One of the Minister's priorities, with a short purse, is to ensure that every resource available is constantly tapped and trawled to see whether it cannot be squeezed again. I am delighted that we have on the Committee at the moment the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, who, as we all know, is the Chairman of the Housing Corporation.
Next Section
Back to Table of Contents
Lords Hansard Home Page