Agenda item

The Council welcomes engagement from members of the public. To speak at this meeting please register no later than 24 hours prior to the date of the meeting via democracy@southkesteven.gov.uk

An email had been received from Karen Oliver from Helping Hands who made the following statement. 

Helping Hands was a new community group which had started up 25 weeks ago.

Helping Hands Grantham opened up to help the public with the cost of living by taking in donations and giving them back out but we now find ourselves with homeless people that are actually rough sleeping coming to us for help as they feel the council have failed them. 

SKDC say you can only have a hotel room if you meet priority needs which I fully understand but we have several cases that meet priority needs but are refused even though they have provided evidence about their complex medial issues.  We have had these decisions turned around because of our persistence but why are these people being let down and left on the streets?

Who is medically trained to understand the medical records that are requested from the public?

We have had a letter from SKDC saying they don’t want to engage with us but we been given no choice in this matter as the public are signing GDPR statement asking us to help them.

We have several homeless clients who are willing to come to a separate meeting to explain how they been treated and spoken to and I think this would be a good idea to build a better relationship with the public that find themselves homeless.

3.4 on Agenda

In July 2024 the report says it was reported 5 individuals sleeping rough this figure is not correct as our emails to SKDC in that period report 10 which we can name them all. So the figure is the same as last year if that figure for 2023 is correct.

The Leader of the Council asked for clarity in respect of the business was it a charity, business or CIC.  The business was a Community Group.  A further question was asked about whether or not it had a constitution to which Ms Oliver stated that it had.  The Leader stated that he would like to meet with the group in the future.

The Cabinet Member for Housing stated that when a client approached the Council as homeless, an assessment was conducted to see whether the Council believed they were a priority need as defined within the homelessness legislation. The Homeless Code of Guidance, Chapter 8 on priority stated that when determining whether an applicant, in any of the categories stated in paragraph 8.14 was vulnerable, the housing authority should determine whether, if homeless, the applicant would be significantly more vulnerable than an ordinary person would be if they became homeless, this is the assessment that the Council’s housing team must complete.  This did not require the team to be medically trained but rather trained in assessing whether any medical issues declared would have an impact on a person’s vulnerability should they be street homeless.  It is for the Housing Options Team to make this decision, not external agencies to dictate to us.  The Council did not reverse decisions based on any persistence from external agencies.  Decisions would only be reviewed if the client presented further information or evidence that was not available to the Council when the initial decision was made.  In relation to Rough Sleeper returns, these are compiled on evidence gathered from incoming referrals and our Rough Sleeper Outreach Teams Who verified that the individuals were bedding down overnight.  All calls were recorded and calls to the Housing Options Team had been reviewed.  The Housing Option Team displayed nothing but professionalism and respect despite being faced with verbal abuse and foul language at times.  Aggression and abuse against Council staff would not be tolerated.

The Chairman asked Ms Oliver if she had a supplementary question.  Ms Oliver proceeded to speak about an individual case and was advised that this was a public meeting and individual cases should not be discussed, they could be discussed outside the public meeting.

The supplementary question was that individuals were coming to Helping Hands who they felt were meeting the priority need and they were not being homed it was only when their organisation got involved that something happened.

The Cabinet Member for Housing responded that Helping Hands had only been in existence for less than six months and they were not sufficiently trained to determine when clients presented themselves as homeless whether they were vulnerable or not.