LGIU Homeless Commission report published

The recent dramatic rise in homelessness across the UK is symbolic of national policy failure and the fraying of the social fabric. It is a sign that as a society we are allowing people to fall through the cracks. 

In this report, the LGiU Local Government Homelessness Commission argues that we desperately need a proper housing and homelessness strategy, that addresses the underlying causes and gives councils the powers and resources they need to carry it out. 

Recommendations 

1. A sustainable housing and homelessness strategy, with adequate funding. 

Homelessness is a much bigger issue than rough sleeping. For every two people sleeping rough on the streets, there are 98 in shelters, temporary accommodation, bed and breakfasts, or moving between precarious forms of accommodation. 

The narrative must change so that it encompasses all forms of homelessness. We need an approach that addresses the real, underlying issues, because just trying to tackle the problem we can see will not work. 

Councils have been tasked with solving one of the big social and political challenges that we face, but with inadequate resources to take on the task. Funding for homelessness services is piecemeal, unproductive and fragmented. As a result there are various small pots of money that help to fund pockets of innovative practice. The HRA has had a positive impact on culture and on the processes within local authorities. But councils need certainty. Without funding to instigate real change in the outcomes, the HRA will only have created an ‘assessment process’, without achieving any of its stated aims. Meanwhile, government departments are not joined-up on the issue, exacerbating the lack of strategy between MHCLG, DWP, the Treasury, and the Department of Health and Social Care. 

Therefore, as a matter of urgency, the government should commit itself to a coherent, combined housing and homelessness strategy with sustainable funding for local authorities to put preventative programmes in place. This must include a firm commitment beyond the 2020 deadline for new burdens funding. 

2. Greater local variation of housing allowance  

We are spending a lot of public money on homelessness, but it is largely wasted because it is being spent inefficiently and in the wrong places. Local Housing Allowance, in particular, amounts to a costly and inefficient transfer of public funds to private landlords and fails to achieve the goals of reducing or preventing homelessness. 

In many parts of the country LHA rates are well below local market rents, while in some areas the rental market is distorted by how rates are calculated, bringing high and low demand areas together within the same bracket. This means that tenancies are unstainable, conditions are too often poor, and councils cannot access decent accommodation to house people when they are at risk of homelessness. 

Local government should, therefore, have the power to vary Local Housing Allowance rates to better reflect local housing market conditions. Greater local variation would be a far more efficient use of public money. It would enable more people to carry on living independently, as well as facilitating councils carrying out their homelessness duty in the private rented sector. In Ireland the government has transferred LHA to the Department for Housing, Planning and Local Government and away from the welfare department. Along with a large programme of investment in affordable housing supply, this represents a coherent strategic approach to housing and homelessness policy.LGiU Homelessness Commission 6 

3. Private rented sector 

The private rented sector is a rapidly growing part of the housing market and the breakdown of a PRS tenancy is now the most common route into homelessness. Meanwhile, recent policy changes have weakened the position of small-scale private landlords, who are a vital part of the housing market across the country. Something is not working, therefore, and the consequences are terrible for some people. This demands attention. 

To address instability and uncertainty in the private rented sector, the government should introduce minimum three-year tenancies. In return, the importance of good landlords should be acknowledged and they should be supported to stay in the market. This would provide greater long-term security and stability for people renting private sector housing. 

The Residential Landlords Association has argued that landlords are not generally opposed to longer tenancies, but would like to see them combined with financial incentives and the ability to take possession of their properties in certain circumstances. 

4. A homelessness prevention toolkit, designed around the needs of local government. 

All too often people fall through the cracks between public services that are poorly joined up. Councils are responsible for bridging these gaps, but they need the tools to do so and accurate, useable information is essential. The current system of gathering and sharing information does not work, however. It is inconsistent, out of date, and often inaccessible. 

To build a data toolkit for homelessness prevention, the government should invest in a project to identify what information local government needs, particularly from central government departments, where the information is held, and what would make it most useful for preventing homelessness. The project would consider how to join up data sets across the public sector in order to spot local and national trends. It would enable councils to do prevention better, but would also target public money and resoures more effectively. The project should be led by councils and based on the experience of council staff and service users. 

LGA RESPONDS TO LOCAL GOVERNMENT HOMELESSNESS COMMISSION REPORT (under embargo)

Responding to a report from the Local Government Homelessness Commission, launched by the Local Government Information Unit, calling on the Government to adopt a national housing and homelessness strategy with sustainable funding for local authorities, the Local Government Association’s Housing spokesman, Cllr Martin Tett, said:

"Every instance of homelessness is an individual tragedy and councils are determined to prevent homelessness from happening in the first place and support families affected.

“With homelessness services facing a funding gap of more than £100 million in 2019/20 and £421 million by 2024/25, the Government needs to use its upcoming Spending Review to sustainably fund homelessness prevention.

“Many councils have updated their homelessness prevention strategies since the Homelessness Reduction Act was introduced last year. But a lack of affordable housing has left many struggling to cope with rising number of people coming to them for help and having to place more families and households into temporary and emergency accommodation as a result.

“This is why councils need to be able to keep 100 per cent of Right to Buy receipts to re-invest in genuinely affordable homes, set discounts locally, and government needs to adapt welfare reforms to protect families at risk of homelessness and prevent homelessness from happening in the first place.”