Homelessness

Robert Goodwill Excerpts

Tuesday 12th June 2012 Westminster Hall

[Ms Buck]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is a matter of great concern, although not central to this debate, that advice services are being cut all over the country. It does not help that legislation that this Government passed in the previous parliamentary Session removes almost all housing support from the scope of legal aid. Advice services all over the country are reducing their hours and their capacity. Indeed, Westminster city council, which is at the heart of my concerns about homelessness, has just announced plans for a further 10% cut in its advice services, which will inevitably affect such families. On the specific point about intentionality, I have absolutely no doubt from my office’s experience that many families and individuals who apply unsuccessfully to a local authority for appropriate housing support are turned away because they have made a simple error in their application. If they had been given good advice and support through the process, it would have led to a different and more satisfactory outcome.

Like unemployment, losing the roof over one’s head is traumatic and can have deep and damaging consequences, particularly for children. Evidence is growing about the impact of homelessness and enforced mobility on vulnerable families, their well-being and their educational outcomes. Nearly half a century ago, the campaigning organisation Shelter grew from one particularly vivid representation of what homelessness could do to a family: the film “Cathy Come Home” exposed its devastating consequences. We have come a long way in our attitudes since then. We have also come a long way since the homelessness catastrophe that engulfed this country during the late 1980s and early 1990s, when 1,000 home owners a week were losing their homes, and there was an extraordinary escalation in the number of families found homeless or in temporary accommodation. However, we have not come far enough. By the late 1990s, the number of people treated as homeless was declining significantly from that peak, but even so, when I was first elected to Parliament, families were spending months and sometimes more than a year trapped in a single bedroom in bed-and-breakfast accommodation with no facilities, sometimes in the most shocking conditions, involving pest infestations, violence and disruption.

I was delighted by the Labour Government’s decision in the early part of the last decade to limit the time that any family with children could spend in bed-and-breakfast accommodation. I hope that I made a small contribution to that decision by taking the then Minister around a hotel in Bayswater to meet families caught in those unfortunate circumstances. However, the truth, then as now, was that bearing down on one manifestation of the problem—in that case, bed-and-breakfast accommodation—does not resolve the underlying problem if other factors are not dealt with, in particular the supply of affordable housing. We accept the Government’s criticism that one thing that the Labour Government did not do as well as we should have was build a sufficient supply of affordable homes. We built homes and introduced the decent homes initiative, and much progress was made during our later years in Government, but we did not build enough homes. However, the bed-and-breakfast crisis was largely resolved by legislation and support. It did not lead to a knock-on catastrophe, as happened in the previous decade, because other economic and social conditions did not underpin a worsening of the problem.

Where the last Government went wrong, I am afraid, is in deciding to seek to halve the number of households in temporary accommodation. It was an arbitrary decision that would have knock-on consequences, which are part of the problem that we are dealing with now. The Government made a well intentioned decision to reduce the number of people in temporary accommodation by diverting families and vulnerable individuals into the private rented sector under the prevention and relief of homelessness duties. Cumulatively, 200,000 or so families have been placed in the private rented sector as a consequence.

This Government have made that reorientation of homelessness duties into a crisis by restricting housing benefit. Unquestionably, we would all like the housing benefit bill to be cut, families to be housed in lower-rent accommodation and rents to come down, but if the Government choose to place vulnerable and low-income families in the private rented sector while at the same time removing the means for them to sustain their tenancies, it will be no surprise to anyone that the consequence is a rise in homelessness, which is exactly what has happened.

Some £2 billion in cuts have been made to housing benefit, the number of working people relying on Government help to pay their rent has increased dramatically and the number of affordable homes being built has collapsed. New statistics just released confirm a 68% fall in affordable housing starts in the year 2011-12, the first full year for which the Government are responsible. The Government are now reaping what they sowed. They were warned in a letter sent by the Department for Communities and Local Government to the Prime Minister last year saying that the housing benefit cuts would lead to a rise in homelessness, which was adamantly denied.

[Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that one factor in making those on housing benefit less attractive to private landlords has been the decision to give rent directly to the tenant? Therefore, unfortunately, in some cases, it is not passed on to the landlord.

[Ms Buck]

The Government were warned that direct payment in a housing market as unstable as ours now is would have exactly those consequences. Yes, direct payment is a concern. It is of grave concern to social landlords, who need a reliable income stream against which they can borrow to invest, and it is of concern to private landlords, but it is not the only problem.

Part of the problem—it is particularly pronounced in London—is that the private rental market is booming. Huge numbers of people can no longer afford to buy their own homes, so they are moving into the private rented sector. Competition is strong for homes there, and low-income families whose only bargaining tool is housing benefit can no longer compete. That is the absolute opposite of what we were told by Ministers. We were told, particularly by Lord Freud, that because housing benefit is such a major purchaser in the private rented sector, rents would fall for people on low incomes. That has not happened. Westminster council has managed to reduce the number of families on housing benefit in the private rented sector by only 52, from 6,000. It is a complete and catastrophic failure of the policy, and the Government were warned about it.

What are the statistics? In 2011, 106,070 people approached their councils as homeless—an increase of 10% from the previous year. Of those, 48,510 households were accepted as being owed a homelessness duty—a 14% increase from 2010. Government street counts and estimates show that 2,181 people across England sleep rough on any given night—a rise of 23% from the previous year. Homelessness agencies report that 3,975 people were seen sleeping rough in London in 2010-11—an 8% rise from the previous year. The number of new rough sleepers rose by 73% compared with the same period last year. The number of people in London living in bed-and-breakfast accommodation increased by 26% last year. The number of families now forced to stay in bed-and-breakfast accommodation for longer than the maximum of six weeks increased threefold between 2010 and 2011.

London Councils warns that housing benefit restrictions are

“leading to a lack of private rented supply in which to place homeless or potential homeless households…which results in an increased number of borough placements in expensive bed-and-breakfast accommodation. This situation is deteriorating and is expected to continue to deteriorate”,

and the introduction of the universal credit is expected to worsen the scenario further.

We cannot say that the Government have been idle in responding to the situation. They have written a letter to local authorities in breach of the six-week limit on families in bed-and-breakfast accommodation. The Minister, whom I am sorry is not in his place, wrote to my council and others saying:

“Whilst this Government has removed targets in the area of homelessness and elsewhere, this does not mean that I am relaxed about local authorities placing families in B and B for extended periods. The detrimental effects of B and B on families are well documented… I do understand that some local authorities are facing increasing homelessness pressures… However, I urge you to prioritise this issue.”

Westminster council—a cheerleader for the restrictions on housing benefit and other measures supported by the Government—is understandably irked at having received that letter. It points out, not unreasonably, that the increase in bed and breakfast is due exclusively to a set of measures introduced, not, to be fair, by the Department for Communities and Local Government, but by its evil twin, the Department for Work and Pensions.

Westminster council said in its response:

“The use of non-self-contained TA—Bed and Breakfast—is the result of demand for housing from homeless households outstripping supply and a shortage of accommodation for households where a duty has been accepted… When Housing Benefit caps were introduced, the Council planned for an increase in homelessness applications”.

That is strange, because Ministers were arguing at that point that there was not the slightest risk that there would be any increase in homelessness as a result of the housing benefit caps. Westminster council was telling us something completely different, as were most other local authorities. Westminster council went on to say that

“it is proving very challenging to procure new units in sufficient volumes to meet demand. The fact that the current funding framework runs out in 9 months and there has been no announcement of any replacement formula and how the LHA and household benefit caps will be applied in practice means it is difficult to provide landlords with surety of income.

The market for properties available for letting within the funding framework is reducing as landlords move away from letting to benefit dependent groups and have alternative markets”.

Stripped of the diplomatic language, that means that homelessness is rising, as families lose their private rented homes because of housing benefit cuts, that the council cannot find anywhere to put them, because homelessness accommodation is also being capped, and that landlords are leaving the market. On top of that, on the one hand, local authorities are being told by the DCLG that they are not supposed to send their homeless households to other parts of the country, while on the other hand, they are being told by DWP that they cannot afford to keep them where they are. Those two Departments are fighting each other in the trenches, leaving vulnerable families caught in the middle.

It gets worse. Even if it is possible to put households in temporary accommodation, under the household benefit cap, which will be introduced in a few months, they will not be able to pay their rent. This is a mystery to everyone. I have not found a single person—I would love it if the Minister, who is not yet in his place, could answer this question—who has been able to tell me what will happen. Last week, two families approached me—they were the first of many—because when their housing benefit is deducted they will be left with nothing. They will not have a single penny to pay for the temporary accommodation that the council has placed them in. They will not be left with £50 to buy food, or £30 to pay their electricity bill and for food. They will be left with nothing. That cannot happen, but nobody has been able to tell me what will happen in those circumstances.

In practice, families who have lost their homes because of a benefit shortfall of £50 or £100 a week are now spending months—I know of families who are spending 10 months—in bed and breakfast accommodation, which is costing the state far more than the amount saved by the cap on housing benefit. That is madness. The situation also means that councils are being forced, with varying degrees of reluctance, to choose which order they break—the time limit on the use of bed and breakfast, or the guidance on local connection, even for those families with many years residency, jobs, children in schools and other family ties.

I will highlight a few cases to illustrate that point. The first reads:

“I am a single mother with a hearing impaired 4 year old and a 6 month old baby girl with hemangioma on her back which is badly ulcerated. I can’t work to rent a flat as my deaf son has speech therapy and audiology appointments at least twice a week, and when I’m not attending therapy or appointments, I’m at Great Ormond Street Hospital for my daughters back.”

She goes on to say that her mother, with whom she was living until being made homeless recently, is a very sick lady. She has cancer and multiple sclerosis and has recently been diagnosed with diabetes. As a consequence, my correspondent and her two sick children were unable to remaining living with her mother. She goes on to say that, fortunately, the council

“put me in a hotel in Victoria which isn’t too far from my sons school, but unfortunately, it’s literally one room with a bathroom”.

There is no fridge or cooking facilities, which is

“very difficult as I’ve been having to go out every time my children get hungry. This is very expensive and even if I can afford it now, in a couple of days I won’t be able to.”

She called the council’s housing department

“and asked them how do they expect me to feed my children if I haven’t got a cooker or a fridge in my room. They said they can’t do anything. Do you know if that’s true? All I want is a self contained place so I can feed the children.”

That letter was written at the end of March; at the end of May, the family were still there. In April, when I asked the council whether they could be moved into self-contained accommodation with cooking facilities, it told me:

“Unfortunately we have had to use the 2 self-contained units which have become available in Westminster or surrounds since your email for even more pressing cases”.

The second case involves Ms E, who was in a privately rented flat off the Harrow road in Westminster. Sadly, she suffered a stroke, was in hospital for seven weeks and is now restricted to a wheelchair. She is 81 years old. During her stay in hospital she was evicted from her home for non-payment of rent. Since being discharged she has had to spend one month in a hotel in the west end, six weeks in a hotel in Kensington, and she is now in another hotel. I am told that housing options is trying to find somewhere suitable for that wheelchair user, who is 81 years old and has suffered a stroke, but surely, after almost 14 weeks, the search should be complete.

In another case, a lady wrote to me:

“I need your help, I am in a complex situation. I am in a private flat and housing benefit will be cut by 30th July 2012.”

She is a single mother with three children, aged nine, seven and six. The oldest is disabled: he has severe sickle cell disease, chronic hypoxaemia and low oxygen. He is at high risk of a stroke and has abnormal transcranial dopplers, and a hospital is monitoring him closely during his painful crises. They have been in their flat since 2009 and in the Westminster borough for 10 years. She continued:

“On 5th March I went to housing options, I asked the housing adviser for them to find us a property because the land lord is not going to accept the new housing benefit rate. He also phoned the land lord and he told me he is not going to lower the price. He told me that I can apply for the DISCRETIONARY HOUSING BENEFIT, but if it is awarded it will be for a limited period till November 2012.

I DO NOT WANT TO BE HOMELESS AND I DO NOT WANT MY CHILDREN TO SUFFER.”

Those are random examples of the kinds of cases that we have been dealing with over the past few weeks, but there are many more.

I am glad to see that the Minister is now in his place. I have talked so far about the pressures driving the increase in homelessness and the increased reliance on bed and breakfast, but I want to turn now to local connection. It has always been my belief that we should find a way to share responsibility for families with no local connections to any area—they should be more fairly distributed among different local authorities—and that we should also make it easier for families who want to move to other parts of the United Kingdom to do so. I know of families who would love to move. They tell me that they have family members in Manchester or elsewhere in the north of England and that they would love to be able to move there, but that there is no mechanism available for them to do so. I know of the HomeSwapper scheme, but if that does not work, there is no statutory framework available that allows people to move.

Those people who have local connections, such as children settled in schools, work—it is a complete myth that everybody who is homeless or on housing benefit is workless; that is not the case—caring responsibilities or other family and voluntary duties, should be supported, and that duty should not cease simply because the home borough happens to be in central London.

I am talking about people like Carol—I have not used anyone’s real name—who is a lifelong Westminster resident. She became homeless after suffering domestic violence and was given temporary accommodation in Dagenham. Her three children attend a school on Church street, where one of them, who has a speech problem, sees a speech therapist, and another receives additional, special learning support. Moving school is therefore not an option. Carol travels from Dagenham to Church street every day to take her children to school and to care for her disabled grandmother and agoraphobic mother. She spends four hours a day travelling, with her small children, from and to her temporary accommodation in east London.

Maryan is homeless due to the housing benefit cuts and currently lives in a hotel in Barnet. She is 29 weeks pregnant and suffers from endometrioses and related problems, which recently resulted in the removal of part of her bowel. Her placenta is not located correctly and moving around or taking the stairs is risky, but she has no choice because her room is on the hotel’s second floor.

Ms T was placed in private accommodation three years ago by housing support. It had an extra and illegal bedroom that was only discovered when we sent an environmental health officer to visit. Her violent ex-partner found out where she lived. She therefore had to make a second homelessness application, and at the time of writing, she was in a hotel where she has been for 10 weeks with her young son and newborn baby.

Family V are homeless owing to housing benefits caps. They have one child with hemiplegic cerebral palsy who attends St Mary’s hospital and is at a special school in Hammersmith. The family have two babies at home and a child at school in Paddington. They are in east London, and they are getting up every morning at 5 am to get to school.

Those are the kinds of cases where families have been located in other London boroughs. Local connection is very strictly defined and usually applies only to people who are taking public exams. That is not right and is not in line with DCLG guidance. The impact of that issue on families is devastating and counter-productive. Yet everything that the Department for Work and Pensions is doing, and that it is underpinning the DCLG to do in terms of housing supply and the weakness of the guidance for local authorities, is driving more and more councils to place their disabled and vulnerable families miles from their schools, caring responsibilities and work. That makes any attempt to rebuild their lives impossible.

Hammersmith council’s draft homelessness strategy has just been published and confirms that point even more strongly. Absolutely in contravention of the Minister’s words and flying in the face of the guidance given to local authorities, that strategy states:

“There is expected to be a reduction in the amount of locally available temporary accommodation… Due to rising local private rents”—

I thought that the Minister told us that they were not rising, but Hammersmith council does not agree—

“and the change in the Local Housing Allowance methodology, the private rented sector outside the borough will be increasingly used to meet the council’s statutory homelessness duties and other housing obligations”.

Considering those words from the mouth of the local authority and the cases that I and other Members increasingly have coming to our doors, it cannot be the case that the Minister is correct in saying that there is a duty to maintain local connection. He cannot be correct in saying that, other than in the case of genuine and short-term emergencies, local authorities are not placing families far outside their local authority and that families are not staying for more than six weeks in bed-and- breakfast accommodation, because all those things are happening.

Everyone we talk to in London Councils, local authorities, the housing sector and the specialist agencies that deal with homeless families tells us that the problem will get significantly and possibly dramatically worse in the coming months. Hardly anyone affected by the housing benefit cap has lost their home yet. A very small proportion of those people have got to the end of their lease, gone to court, perhaps seen a bailiff and ended up making a homeless application. The worst is very much still to come, because temporary accommodation has not yet been brought into the housing benefit regime. That is why local authorities are struggling so hard. In addition, the household benefit cap has not come into effect, which will make it impossible for families even to pay the rent for the accommodation that the local authority has placed them in. It is time for the two Departments to sit down, work this out, get a grip and prevent what is currently a crisis from turning into a catastrophe.