Homelessness

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I join others in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, on securing such a timely and important debate. The impact of the CSR announcement on capping social rents kept us all up late last Wednesday during Report on the Welfare Reform and Work Bill—and quite right too. This is an incredibly important issue for many providers of supported housing for the most vulnerable, whose care and shelter may be all that stands between those they serve and unbearable hardship or even death.

I think about Jonathan, who was offered a place in the Exaireo homelessness project in Loughborough after he tried to drink himself to death when his marriage foundered. Exaireo means to rescue and restore. It did not just put a roof over his head but gave him a reason to hope again, to rediscover a sense of purpose and his worth as a human being. Within a couple of years, with Exaireo’s help he had set up a consultancy that has since worked with local authorities on their housing strategies. It has a great track record in getting people off benefits and into jobs and higher education. For information, the criminal justice system savings from keeping ex-offenders out of prison are more than 300% higher than the housing benefit costs they incur.

Certainly, organisations such as Exaireo are concerned about the sword of Damocles that hangs over their funding, as has just been referred to. I am sure the Minister can imagine the trust they and others must place in the Government’s review as they seek to expand to meet growing need. My noble friend Lord Freud repeatedly stated that this Government take their responsibilities to the most vulnerable extremely seriously as they seek to reform welfare. Ministers responding in last week’s debate in the other place on housing benefit and supported housing were also unequivocal that they had no interest in cutting off the social housing sector at the knees.

However, this debate is about preventing homelessness, and I want to spend the rest of my time talking about what we must do to reduce the number of people who need the services of organisations such as Exaireo. Many providers cite the prevalence of relationship breakdown as a potent driver of destitution. Exaireo says that it is a significant factor for more than half, possibly three-quarters, of all the people they help. Certainly many of them have addictions and mental health problems but, as Professor Kim Etherington’s research has shown, the roots of these often lie in the trauma from emotional, physical and sexual abuse that people experienced in childhood. Poor parenting has to be addressed, so I welcome the Prime Minister’s life chances speech, which highlighted this as well as the need to support couple relationships.

Tragically, the pressure group Crisis says that the biggest cause of homelessness in young people is being told to leave the family home by their parents, when the relationship between them has broken down considerably or irretrievably. The inspiring Liv Bauckham, who leads Love4life, another award-winning Midlands charity, says how difficult it is for the vulnerable young people she works with when a string of different partners come into their mothers’ lives. Many single parents are utterly devoted to their children and either put their own romantic aspirations on hold or tread incredibly carefully in this area, but it can be the case that young girls and boys suddenly find themselves living with older men whom they have never met. When there is conflict, often borne out of the teenager’s fear for their own safety, the mother, says Liv,

“will always put her boyfriend first”.

The teenager is seen as an unruly and unpleasant interloper in their romance and is given the ultimatum that if they do not like the living arrangements, they can always leave. Crises are easily reached, and underage teenagers find themselves sofa-surfing, going into care or disappearing into the shadowlands of gang and drug culture, easy prey for exploitative adults. Yet their mothers are often outworking a dysfunctional parenting blueprint they somehow survived themselves.

In many families in our poorest communities, and even in some where there is less financial need, the relational fabric of society lies in tatters. There are solutions that could ultimately stem the flow of people into homelessness services, but we have to start early. Your Lordships, and indeed now a number of Ministers, are aware of my focus on the need for family hubs. Some pioneering local authorities facing greater social need and smaller budgets, such as the Isle of Wight, have transformed their early years children’s centres into hubs where families with older children can go when they are struggling. Troubled families programmes are wholly integrated into this service. Often it is the conflicted relationship between parents that hinders them from giving their children the safe, stable and nurturing environment that they need to flourish. Bromley family hubs recognise this and, if staff cannot help couples, there is a small budget for Relate sessions.

Leadership from national government is urgently needed to encourage local authorities to broaden the purpose of children’s centre infrastructure. Many children’s centres are deserted from 4 pm onwards; certainly they are underused at evenings and weekends. Let us sweat these assets. Will the Minister undertake to look more closely at family hubs and perhaps consider using her role in the Cabinet Social Justice Committee to create a caucus for change in this vital area?