It is vital that everyone leaving prison has somewhere safe and secure to live.
We know that housing can be a real problem for those leaving custody. As part of the work on this issue, we have invested £22m per annum until the end of the current contracts with Community Rehabilitation Companies so they can provide a specified enhanced Through The Gate (TTG) service in all 86 resettlement prisons in England and Wales. However, offenders still face a number of barriers in accessing accommodation, including the availability of local authority housing, affordability of the private-rented sector and the knowledge and expertise required to navigate housing services.
Addressing these barriers is not something the Ministry of Justice can do in isolation; we are developing an HMPPS strategy for accommodation that will clearly set out our responsibilities, our partners’ responsibilities and a framework for how we can build on our successes and work together to ensure that offenders are able to access and maintain settled accommodation. We are also working collaboratively with the Welsh Government and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to identify ways of breaking down these barriers and to ensure that every person leaving prison has somewhere to go. As part of this, we are investing up to £6.4 million over two years in a pilot scheme to help ex-offenders into accommodation from three prisons, namely Bristol, Pentonville and Leeds. This pilot will offer support to prisoners on short sentences who have been identified as being at risk of homelessness. Subject to evaluation, we will use the lessons learned from this pilot to inform future accommodation provision.