Agenda item

The Cabinet Member for Housing updated the Committee on the current position on the status of homelessness and rough sleeping within South Kesteven.  The report appended to the agenda also detailed what the Council’s homelessness duties were and provided details of existing interventions to address homelessness and rough sleeping.

There had been an increase in homelessness applications in the last two years which was in line with the national homelessness figures.  In comparison there had been a decrease in the number of rough sleepers compared to last year’s figures.

The spend on temporary accommodation for 2023/24 where the Council had a duty to house people was £500,000 which had exceeded the set budget.

The report outlined the Councils duty when dealing with homelessness applications and rough sleepers and detailed other initiatives that the Council explored which included partnership working, early preventions and interventions.

The Director of Housing and Projects stated that the 2023/24 base budget had been £50,000 but it had been increased to £467,000 through the receipt of grant funding.  As part of the budget setting process last year the Council had increased the base budget from £50,000 to £200,000 which recognised the increased pressure that had been placed on the Council through its statutory homelessness duty.  A further grant from the Homelessness Prevention Government Grant of £268,000 had been received for the current financial year which had increased the total budget to £468,000.

The following comments/questions were raised:

·       Priority Need and the Council’s response if a person did not meet the definition of Priority Need

·       The increased trend in homelessness both locally and nationally due to the housing crisis and what the Council’s strategic response was so that it was not reliant on short-term hotel spend or bed and breakfast accommodation.

·       How homelessness was managed, this was dictated by the Homelessness National Guidance manual and priority need primarily dictated who the Council had a duty to provide short-term accommodation for.

·       If a person did not meet the priority need, legislation guided the Council in relation to what other duties could be undertaken. 

·       If a person was not provided with temporary accommodation the Council looked at what other options were available.   Such as access to the housing register or private rental options or rooms in shared houses.

·       Partnership working - improving relationships with Private landlords to see if the private sector could be accessed for accommodation.

·       Demand for stock and affordable housing outweighed supply.

·       Working with other districts if the person wished to relocate, however this could be challenging.

·       Accommodation was not always the answer in relation to both homelessness and rough sleepers who often had extremely complex needs which was where partnership working came in.

·       Partnership working included mental health support providers, adult social care.  If accommodation was provided it was important that a holistic support package was in place to support the person in their accommodation.

·       Did the Council have any specialist accommodation – the Council did not have any specialist supported accommodation; it would work with partners such as adult social care to help provide this type of accommodation.

·       The number of rough sleepers was queried and it was stated that the Council had an Outreach Team that covered South Holland, West Lindsey, North Kesteven as well as South Kesteven.

·       Mechanisms were in place so that anyone, including the public could report instances of rough sleeping through StreetLink to the Team. 

·       Intelligence was gathered through partner agencies such as The Passage and also The Beehive to verify the number of rough sleepers.

·       The team had links with CCTV colleagues who could usually tell if someone was on the street.

·       If rough sleepers did not present themselves then they couldn’t be validated.

·       The Outreach Team did an incredible job.

·       Were there any deals with the accommodation used to bring costs down and when communicating with homelessness people how did they charge their phones.

·       It was stated that there were various outlets where mobile phones could be charged without cost.

·       Communicating with homelessness people could be challenging – the mobile phones provided out were literally only a phone which could make calls and text and which had a longer battery life than a smartphone.

·       What links did the Council have with charities such as Crisis and Shelter and what work were we doing with them.

·       Reference was made to Embassy Village in Manchester which had been in the news recently which had been built at a cost of £3.5m for 40 units for temporary accommodation for the homeless.

·       The Council did link in with homeless charities where possible.  Shelter had been in and delivered training in the past as well as training models of good practice from other organisations.

·       Going forward initiatives would be explored in respect of temporary accommodation.

·       Would medical information be requested in respect of homeless people – yes to see how it impacted their ability to cope on the streets, clear guidelines were adhered to as per the legislation.

·       Homeless people with complex needs, medical, physical would be signposted to other support agencies such as Crisis.

Further comments were made in respect of extra support needs, Change4Lincs, that officers had to work within the homelessness legislation, investing the budget into a longer term solution, people with complex needs required help but didn’t want it, joined up working with external partners who had the relevant expertise to deal with people with complex needs. 

Funding for Change4Lincs would be known in December and each of those authorities within the Change4Lincs group would be looking at what they wanted in respect of the rough sleeper initiative going forward, whether it remained a joint delivery service or whether some organisations wanted to deliver it themselves.

A comment was made about StreetLink and getting the Communication Team to advertise that information about spotting and reporting rough sleepers and the Head of Housing agreed that a refresher communication was due.   A Member commented that not everyone who was homeless wanted to be put in accommodation and their choice had to be taken into consideration and gave an example to the Committee.

The Chairman thanked the public speaker for attending and thanked the Committee for a productive debate.