The number of homeless households in England is set to jump dramatically this week as councils publish their official figures. Martin Hilditch finds out why
When he was in opposition housing minister Grant Shapps made a name for himself by pledging to do more to battle homelessness.
Since the Conservative Party gained power he has made good on his promise to give the issue a high profile - setting up a cross-departmental group to tackle the problem.
This week, however, significant numbers of councils will leave him in little doubt about the scale of the challenge he still faces. Across England councils as geographically diverse as Crawley and Durham, Manchester and Norwich will post their first large increases in homeless numbers for years.
These are no small jumps. Freedom of information requests by Inside Housing, which obtained the figures ahead of their expected publication on Thursday, reveal that 37 out of the 51 councils who provided figures for 2010/11 saw homelessness increase (Inside Housing, 3 June). On average the 37 had made 40 per cent more homelessness decisions than in 2009/10 and granted 25 per cent more applications.
Puzzling trend
On the face of it the trend is puzzling - many of the councils that will report jumps this week continued to see falls in homelessness during the recession. So what is causing the dramatic increases?
Looking in more detail at the figures provides some clues as to what might be happening. Durham Council, a unitary authority formed in April 2009 when seven district councils were abolished, made 920 homelessness decisions in 2010/11 - a jump of 57 per cent from the 588 in 2009/10. Of its homelessness applications, 384 were granted - up 46 per cent from 264.
Drilling down into the figures, however, reveals an even bigger percentage jump. In 2009/10 domestic violence was the reason for a household becoming homeless in 75 cases. In 2010/11 the figure rocketed. Last year it was the reason for homelessness in 153 cases - a massive increase of 104 per cent.
Andrew Burnip, housing solutions core team manager at Durham Council, describes the domestic violence figures as ‘a huge leap’. He says the rise in homlessness figures is partly a symptom of the ongoing stresses placed on households first by the recession and then by cutbacks under the coalition.
‘Where households have seen incomes drop and they have been relying probably on the minimum wage and where their working hours have been cut back, that does inevitably put pressure on relationships and some eventually present to us in housing need,’ he states.
Mr Burnip is at pains to point out, however, that there could be other reasons for the rise. Since becoming a unitary authority - and as a result of the recession - the council has taken great pains to promote its homelessness service, including running adverts on the local radio station.
While this approach may drive up homelessness figures, it will ultimately be beneficial to both the council and the community and save money in the long term, he suggests.
‘What we wanted to do is make sure that people are aware that the earlier they come for advice the better the outcome is going to be for that individual and their family,’ he states. ‘It is the old mantra of prevention really.’
However, Durham Council is not taking prevention to the extremes that some of the previous district authorities did - by stopping some people from making homeless applications in the first place, known as gatekeeping.
‘There was an indication [after the unitary was formed] that a bit of gatekeeping was more prominent in some areas than others,’ he adds. ‘Effectively there wasn’t a homelessness application being taken.’
Financial pressure
A complicated picture then - but Lisa Kennedy, housing options team leader at Northampton Council, says she is clear that the increase in its figures are ‘mostly to do with the economic climate’. The authority found 462 households to be homeless in 2010/11 - a jump of 66 per cent on the 278 the previous year.
Ms Kennedy states that domestic violence is an issue that has become more prevalent - causing about 35 per cent of its homelessness cases. ‘The main causes of domestic violence tend to be economic pressures,’ she states.
The council has also seen an increase in owner-occupier and private repossessions, she states, and an ‘an awful lot of parental evictions’, where parents ask their children to move out.
She is pessimistic about the immediate prospects for an improvement in the figures, saying that the current increase is partly a ‘ripple effect’ from the recession. ‘A lot of people have been depending on things like savings,’ she states. ‘I think this is the tip of the iceberg, to be honest.’
A spokesperson for Birmingham Council, which saw homeless decisions rise by 66 per cent to 8,499 in 2010/11 and acceptances jump by 25 per cent to 4,207, says it has ‘seen unprecedented levels of homeless households approaching the authority’ over the past year because of the economic downturn.
The authority says it has responded by launching four new housing advice centres and that homeless acceptances for January to March 2011 were down on the previous quarter.
Manchester Council, however, puts its increase - a 97 per cent rise in decisions to 2,504 and a 33 per cent jump in acceptances to 643 - down to ‘in part a tightening of our procedures to ensure homeless decisions were made on any homeless household approaching the service where there was reason to believe they may be homeless and in priority need’. The implication, like Durham, is that it was ending previous gatekeeping practices.
A Communities and Local Government department spokesperson says that despite these rises ‘statutory homelessness remains at historically low levels’. This is certainly true, although Manchester and Durham’s response raises questions about how this has been achieved in some cases.
The spokesperson adds that the Localism Bill will give councils more flexibility to discharge their homelessness duty in the private rented sector when it becomes law at the end of this year. This would make it easier for councils to reduce homelessness figures because they would no longer have a duty to house applicants if they turn down an offer of a private rented home. At the moment it may have to place them in temporary housing until a suitable social home can be found.
Campbell Robb, chief executive of homelessness charity Shelter, says that this new freedom - coupled with figures in March which revealed growing numbers of households in England were becoming homeless after being kicked out by private landlords - suggests a worrying future for many families.
‘This will ultimately trap them in a constant cycle of insecurity and homelessness,’ he states.
Whatever the implications for the future, the figures make it clear that communities are under stress now. Mr Shapps’ reputation as housing minister will be defined by his response.
Source http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/
When he was in opposition housing minister Grant Shapps made a name for himself by pledging to do more to battle homelessness.
Since the Conservative Party gained power he has made good on his promise to give the issue a high profile - setting up a cross-departmental group to tackle the problem.
This week, however, significant numbers of councils will leave him in little doubt about the scale of the challenge he still faces. Across England councils as geographically diverse as Crawley and Durham, Manchester and Norwich will post their first large increases in homeless numbers for years.
These are no small jumps. Freedom of information requests by Inside Housing, which obtained the figures ahead of their expected publication on Thursday, reveal that 37 out of the 51 councils who provided figures for 2010/11 saw homelessness increase (Inside Housing, 3 June). On average the 37 had made 40 per cent more homelessness decisions than in 2009/10 and granted 25 per cent more applications.
Puzzling trend
On the face of it the trend is puzzling - many of the councils that will report jumps this week continued to see falls in homelessness during the recession. So what is causing the dramatic increases?
Looking in more detail at the figures provides some clues as to what might be happening. Durham Council, a unitary authority formed in April 2009 when seven district councils were abolished, made 920 homelessness decisions in 2010/11 - a jump of 57 per cent from the 588 in 2009/10. Of its homelessness applications, 384 were granted - up 46 per cent from 264.
Drilling down into the figures, however, reveals an even bigger percentage jump. In 2009/10 domestic violence was the reason for a household becoming homeless in 75 cases. In 2010/11 the figure rocketed. Last year it was the reason for homelessness in 153 cases - a massive increase of 104 per cent.
Andrew Burnip, housing solutions core team manager at Durham Council, describes the domestic violence figures as ‘a huge leap’. He says the rise in homlessness figures is partly a symptom of the ongoing stresses placed on households first by the recession and then by cutbacks under the coalition.
‘Where households have seen incomes drop and they have been relying probably on the minimum wage and where their working hours have been cut back, that does inevitably put pressure on relationships and some eventually present to us in housing need,’ he states.
Mr Burnip is at pains to point out, however, that there could be other reasons for the rise. Since becoming a unitary authority - and as a result of the recession - the council has taken great pains to promote its homelessness service, including running adverts on the local radio station.
While this approach may drive up homelessness figures, it will ultimately be beneficial to both the council and the community and save money in the long term, he suggests.
‘What we wanted to do is make sure that people are aware that the earlier they come for advice the better the outcome is going to be for that individual and their family,’ he states. ‘It is the old mantra of prevention really.’
However, Durham Council is not taking prevention to the extremes that some of the previous district authorities did - by stopping some people from making homeless applications in the first place, known as gatekeeping.
‘There was an indication [after the unitary was formed] that a bit of gatekeeping was more prominent in some areas than others,’ he adds. ‘Effectively there wasn’t a homelessness application being taken.’
Financial pressure
A complicated picture then - but Lisa Kennedy, housing options team leader at Northampton Council, says she is clear that the increase in its figures are ‘mostly to do with the economic climate’. The authority found 462 households to be homeless in 2010/11 - a jump of 66 per cent on the 278 the previous year.
Ms Kennedy states that domestic violence is an issue that has become more prevalent - causing about 35 per cent of its homelessness cases. ‘The main causes of domestic violence tend to be economic pressures,’ she states.
The council has also seen an increase in owner-occupier and private repossessions, she states, and an ‘an awful lot of parental evictions’, where parents ask their children to move out.
She is pessimistic about the immediate prospects for an improvement in the figures, saying that the current increase is partly a ‘ripple effect’ from the recession. ‘A lot of people have been depending on things like savings,’ she states. ‘I think this is the tip of the iceberg, to be honest.’
A spokesperson for Birmingham Council, which saw homeless decisions rise by 66 per cent to 8,499 in 2010/11 and acceptances jump by 25 per cent to 4,207, says it has ‘seen unprecedented levels of homeless households approaching the authority’ over the past year because of the economic downturn.
The authority says it has responded by launching four new housing advice centres and that homeless acceptances for January to March 2011 were down on the previous quarter.
Manchester Council, however, puts its increase - a 97 per cent rise in decisions to 2,504 and a 33 per cent jump in acceptances to 643 - down to ‘in part a tightening of our procedures to ensure homeless decisions were made on any homeless household approaching the service where there was reason to believe they may be homeless and in priority need’. The implication, like Durham, is that it was ending previous gatekeeping practices.
A Communities and Local Government department spokesperson says that despite these rises ‘statutory homelessness remains at historically low levels’. This is certainly true, although Manchester and Durham’s response raises questions about how this has been achieved in some cases.
The spokesperson adds that the Localism Bill will give councils more flexibility to discharge their homelessness duty in the private rented sector when it becomes law at the end of this year. This would make it easier for councils to reduce homelessness figures because they would no longer have a duty to house applicants if they turn down an offer of a private rented home. At the moment it may have to place them in temporary housing until a suitable social home can be found.
Campbell Robb, chief executive of homelessness charity Shelter, says that this new freedom - coupled with figures in March which revealed growing numbers of households in England were becoming homeless after being kicked out by private landlords - suggests a worrying future for many families.
‘This will ultimately trap them in a constant cycle of insecurity and homelessness,’ he states.
Whatever the implications for the future, the figures make it clear that communities are under stress now. Mr Shapps’ reputation as housing minister will be defined by his response.
Source http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/
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