Homelessness Archives - Page 4 of 4

Steve Hilditch

Founder of Red Brick. Former Head of Policy for Shelter. Select Committee Advisor for Housing and Homelessness. Drafted the first London Mayor’s Housing Strategy under Ken Livingstone. Steve sits on the Editorial Panel of Red Brick.

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In the absence of a proper statement as to what the ConDem government’s housing policy is, we are left to pick up jigsaw pieces and try to make a coherent picture out of them.

Lord Freud of Benefit Reform, speaking to the work and pensions select committee, seems to have let one particular cat out of the bag.

Flying in the face of expert opinion and echoing what David Cameron said on the subject, he argued that the housing benefit reforms would not cause additional homelessness or a need for additional temporary accommodation. But then, in rather contradictory terms, he argued that it would be very valuable to change the definition of homelessness. The statutory definition is not as it should be, he complained, because it is more than not having a roof over your head.

If this is a signal that the government is working on a change in the statutory definition, which has been broadly the same since landmark private member’s legislation in 1977, promoted by a Liberal, then yet more of the most dire forecasts of the housing world will come true. Freud complains that housing experts are stirring up fears and frightening people, but the pattern at the moment is that, when the worst fears are expressed, they are condemned as scaremongering by Ministers one day only to be confirmed as policy the next.

As we have noted before, the homelessness legislation is indeed a barrier to the government’s plans to cut housing benefit support, because local authorities will have to take responsibility for some of those displaced. So the next obvious step is to change the homelessness legislation to enable the HB cuts to be delivered without so many knock-on effects. In effect, many more people will become homeless under the existing definition, but will not be regarded as homeless by a new definition. So there is no additional homelessness. Clever trick, but a trick nonetheless.

There is a large constituency in this country that believes that the homelessness safety net, imperfect though it is, is one of the core pillars of the welfare state, not just a nice add-on that we can no longer afford. Out there in the real world there are countless voluntary organisations, faith groups, and concerned citizens who work with homeless people daily and know the real story. Many regard the manner in which we treat homeless people as a benchmark of our civilisation. When mobilised, they can be a huge political force, and if I was the coalition government, I wouldn’t want to upset them.

Steve Hilditch

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The Conservative Party never apologised for the corruption and gerrymandering practised by Dame Shirley Porter at the expense of the homeless and badly housed people of Westminster. John Major once promised to do so when the legal process was complete and if the case was finally found against her, but it has never been forthcoming. There is a deep and abiding suspicion that the Tories have never forgiven the Audit Commission for its role in bringing her to book and the constant embarrassment that the case caused them. Some even think that the decision to abolish the Audit Commission could be some macabre form of revenge.

More important however is the strain of thought that has survived down the years: poor people should not be allowed to live in places like Westminster and, in Porter’s words, you have to be ‘mean and nasty’ to homeless people.

One of the clear impediments in the way of the Government’s housing benefit reforms – the 21^st century clearances – is the homelessness legislation. Many of the people who will not be able to afford their homes after the HB changes will have rights under the 2002 Homelessness Act. And Westminster Council is very alive to this.

An exchange of letters between the Westminster Cabinet Member for Housing, Cllr Philippa Roe, and Grant Shapps, disclosed in Dave Hill’s London Blog yesterday and also seen by Red Brick, couldn’t be clearer.

Roe essentially has 3 demands, which taken together would gut the legislative safety net for homeless people.

First, she wants to tighten the local connection rules. Currently, an applicant with 6 months residency in the borough could claim a local connection if they became homeless, and she wants this extended to 3 years. 6 months happens to be the length of the typical assured shorthold tenancy, and Westminster has long believed that the masses move into Westminster on a short tenancy just so they can make a homelessness claim on the City at the end of it. In fact anyone with any knowledge of Westminster’s approach to temporary accommodation and the extraordinary length of time people have to wait for a home would avoid them like the plague if they had the choice.

Secondly, and more worrying, is her demand that the main homelessness duty under s.193 should be discharged by finding someone an assured shorthold tenancy in the private rented sector. This would effectively remove the safety net that has been in place since 1977. This is a possible outcome under the current Act and Guidance, but only if the tenancy meets conditions and the applicant signs a statement accepting the offer and saying that they understand it discharges the s.193 duty.

Thirdly, she wants to end the requirement in most cases to offer temporary accommodation in borough. The guidance seems to be widely ignored already and most of Westminster’s TA is out of borough and often the other side of London, but the change would give them more freedom to dump people far from their support networks, schools and jobs.

Shapps’ reply is non-committal although his promise to give the points ‘careful consideration’ is not as comforting as a rejection would be. Even giving them ‘consideration’ risks undermining his carefully created reputation for being ok on homelessness.

The wheels are starting to come off the HB proposals. First, because even this Government might baulk at the prospect of having to tackle the homelessness safety net to make them work. Secondly because they simply have not thought through the parallel policies of cutting HB at the same time as increasing rents rapidly. And thirdly, because councils are beginning to get nervous about the unintended consequences that a rapid churn of poorer tenants might have for their budgets. It’s not over yet.