This is probably, overall, a welcome change. a couple of thoughts:
The ‘prevention duty’ will increase from 56 days to six months. This gives local authorities much more time to support anyone at risk of homelessness.
the prevention duty arises from the homeless reduction act 2018. before 56 days are up, a local authority must attempt to prevent or relieve homelessness before it can accept main duty (this is the point where a household is placed into temporary accommodation awaiting an offer of permanent accomm)
prevention mainly consists of persuading your landlord or family not to kick you out, or finding somewhere else for you to stay before you become actually homeless
if the 56 days is extended to six months, does this mean an LA must wait that long before accepting main duty? if so expect the homelessness stats to decrease, as nobody is counted as being accepted as homeless before that time is up
The priority need test and intentionality test – which have excluded people from life-saving support for far too long – will be abolished.
interesting as the priority need test is essentially are you more vulnerable than the average bloke, practically excluding all street homeless as to meet the test you generally will have to be under 18, very old or ill, or have dependents. this will entitle a large swathe of potential applicants who will previously have been fobbed off to some assisstance, which is good. it will also inevitably attract plenty of chancers who would previously have had no hope of getting anywhere
will also be interesting to see what removing the intentionality test does. one of the main effects of this was to trip up tenants who thought they were doing the right thing when they received an eviction notice by just leaving their home. seems obvious but if they did this before the landlord got a court order, they could be assessed as intentionally homeless because they left without being forced to do so. another one is about evictions due to rent arrears, where if your bank statements showed you could well have paid the rent if you didn’t spend so much on candy crush powerups etc, you would likely be found intentional
all in all probably quite a good development, i don’t mind if it lets a few more blaggers through if help is more accessible to those who need it. but i suspect the increase to six months will actually reduce the number of homeless cases who end up being offered council accomm, and just shuffle them around the private rented market. hope to be wrong about that.
( quotes from https://thewallich.com/news/homelessness-and-social-housing-allocation-wales-bill/ )
There’s a lot of bolster in that article and not enough real facts of what they will be doing. Jist of it was “moving away from one that responds to crisis and towards one that is firmly focused on prevention”. Stating services can work together for 6 month before homelessness occurs. And the only mechanism I saw was ensuring care leavers are given priority on social housing.
World leading should come from action and innovation not just marketing statements.
Some good ideas in this bill, care leavers given some priority for example, but as always with Welsh Gov - where’s the money? This will just cause even higher council tax rises. And with what properties do they expect LAs to provide to people? It’ll just see an increase in HMOs and crime rates as the private market will see an opportunity to force as many people into one building as possible (moreso than already)
Putting less restriction on social workers seems like a step in the right direction.
The Welsh government isn’t the only one in Europe focusing on tweaking rules and on reorganisations, rather than putting resources where most needed.
Let’s hope there’s more to come to make housing more afforable, eg better regulation of airbnb-style rentals, use tax/insevtives to make housing less attractive to speculators but more accessible to residents.
Public money for social housing can help too, but by itself it won’t fix the disfunctional housing market.
The British Treasury
I’ve been supporting Crisis and Shelter every month for years now. I’d gladly pay more tax so people have a right to somewhere safe to live.
Growing up, my sister would never ignore someone who was homeless and would get to know them and support them however she should (a coffee, help with forms and letters, even just a general chat). Every day, everywhere we’d go. She drilled it into us that there’s never an excuse to ignore someone who needs help and luck could turn and we could easily be in the same situation ourselves.
As a society, we shouldn’t view a roof over our heads as an asset but a right. We spend plenty of money on nuclear reactors for submarines that can launch the apocalypse, I think we can spend some more on helping the most vulnerable not be forced onto the streets.
Your sister sounds like a beautiful person
Your sister sounds pretty incredible.
I never feel as though I’d know what to do or say, or would be able to even help in the first place.
Kudos to the pair of you.
I’ve been immensely fortunate to grow up with such a wonderful role model.
It’s important to note rough sleeping is only one part of homelessness but it’s the most visible.
I’d recommend reading Crisis’ page on how you can help.
This is excellent. Thank you very much. Im going to take the points on the crisis page onboard.
