Minutes:
What is the estimated capacity of WBC to house homeless single people and homeless families this financial year?
Answer
I will reiterate some of the stuff I said earlier on. This document that I will be presenting later on tonight is actually part of our Housing Strategy and it is probably one of the most important documents that I will present to this Council while I am in this role.
As you know, the Council does treat homelessness and rough sleeping very seriously and recognises the devastating impact it can have on individuals and families. The Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy and Action Plan being considered by Executive tonight sets out our strategic and practical approach to preventing, managing and support those people who are threatened with homelessness or who have unfortunately become homeless.
The key focus of the Council and our partner agencies and organisations remain on early intervention and prevention – providing advice and support to help individuals and families to remain in their current home or, if that is not possible or appropriate, to find secure, permanent and appropriate alternative accommodation.
We will only use temporary accommodation where we have exhausted those other alternatives and we will continue to work with those individuals or families, using their agreed Personal Housing Plans (PHPs), to find them a permanent solution.
The Council uses a range of temporary accommodation – from specialist accommodation to some of our own general needs housing stock. In addition, there may be occasions when we will use private rented properties or in real emergencies, bed and breakfast accommodation, but we do not like using that because it is not always possible to do it within the Borough.
The Council owns a number of properties specifically identified for temporary accommodation:
· On the Oxford Road we have very nice 9 self-contained units (including one disabled adapted flat)
· Foxwood – we have 5 contained units (including one disabled adapted flat)
· Grovelands – we have 12 mobile home units which have been renovated, including skirting round them underneath so they do not just look like mobile homes.
· Broadway – we have 10 units.
However, we have been a bit more inventive as you probably know. With Gorse Ride, we are beginning to move people out because what we want to do is refresh the stock there. We have got at the moment between 30 and 40 families actually living in Gorse Ride in temporary accommodation, in the regeneration area.
The combined budget for supporting homeless families and Housing Needs for 2019/20 was £366,000 and it is important to note that these budgets are subject to grant funding and are reviewed regularly.
Where we can we build our own accommodation, or buy our own accommodation, or convert our own accommodation, for the needs of homelessness rather than put them in bed and breakfast.
Supplementary Question
What additional facilities would the Council need to meet forecast homelessness in the Borough over the next 18 months?
Supplementary Answer
The Action Plan attached to the Strategy sets out our proposed approach to tackling Homelessness and Rough Sleeping. However, this Plan is not a plan that we draw up and put on a shelf. It is constantly monitored and reviewed – for example in Adult Social Care we have recently identified a specific need around providing move-on accommodation for adults with mental health problems coming out of hospital and potentially being at risk of becoming homeless.
However, it is not proposed to build any additional facilities for general needs temporary accommodation provision. As highlighted in the Strategy our main focus will be to actually find homes for people that are permanent homes.
In 2018/19 248 households presented as homeless to the Council. 91 of them were accepted as homeless, but in the first 6 months of 2019/20 42 households were accepted as homeless. Those households accepted as homeless are placed in Band 1, which means they are ready for immediate allocation, which ensures they receive top priority for any appropriate affordable accommodation that becomes available. I am happy to report that in the first 6 months of this year, bearing in mind that we actually accepted 42 households that were homeless in the first 6 months of this year, 212 affordable homes actually came up for allocation. We expect that number to be about the same for the last 6 months, so as you can see we are gaining on it.
It does depend on the type of home they need. If they need 4 or 5 bedroom accommodation that is more complicated for us to find, but I can tell you that those 42 had actually been placed, but at this point, 6 months, I would expect them only to be in temporary accommodation for around about 2 and a half weeks. I said the average time for someone being in temporary accommodation is 25 days.