Homelessness

Everyone wants to look after homeless people.   No one like the thought of people sleeping rough, and I would hope that we would be able to help these people in any way possible (Give homeless people socks.  Gloves and scarfs are great but usually they’ll have these already, but Socks help keep their feet warm.  That’s important when you’re on the street).  This is one of those topics that I have a direct link too. I used to work in a homeless shelter and also still work with organisations which help homeless people. This is an interesting one because ALL councils have a duty of care to homeless people.  That’s right, your council has a duty of care towards homeless people. That means it’s under the FoI act…

In April 2015, the Welsh Government brought into effect Part 2 of the Housing (Wales) Act

2014. It contained new duties on Local Authorities to help prevent and relieve homelessness. The scope of the legislation ensures everyone is given help to find housing solutions if they are at risk of homelessness, with Local Authorities required to help people to prevent or relieve their homelessness. Said the Welsh Assembly when asked them for advice on what they do (A copy of the law is found here).  

Great!  By law the councils have to help people.  What help though?  How much money is spent on homelessness?  And so I asked all Welsh Councils the following questions:

1. How many registered homeless people do you have in your council in 2015.
2. How many de-registered homeless people do you have in your council in 2015.
3. How much paperwork do people need to fill in to be registered homeless
4. How much is spent on homelessness
5. What projects do you have to help people with homelessness

The first thing that was quite funny doing this was that many of the council's got back in touch with me and asked “What does de-registered mean”.  Your decision on if that is clear or not.

So I got back a mixed bag of answers.  The main point that most councils said was that the amount of homelessness in their council are was to be found on statswales.  Now you can see this on their website, so I am not going back over this here.  The thing that struck me is how few people are registered.  Officially there is 240 across Wales, the highest is Cardiff, with 64 and the lowest is Blaenau Gwent with none. This doesn't tell the whole story, though.  Because anyone who works in homelessness knows that this number - in Wales - is much higher. The reasons are so varied but they link in with the answer to question 4.

So what about paperwork.  Most of the council stated that they only have to fill in one form, and most only do face to face interviews. WHich is pretty good, because more people who have to deal with homelessness have low literacy levels; so filling in paperwork is the last thing that they need.

The thing that surprised me was two different aspects. First of all, The amount that councils spend on homelessness.  It goes into the millions. There is a lot more provision for homelessness and the causes for homelessness.  The amount of organisations that the council call upon to help and individual.  Mind, CAB, literally there was huge amounts.   

I’ve not been entirely been honest with you.  The thing is I originally asked for homelessness figures for the previous 5 years.  In doing so, I found that there was a massive spike in Flintshires homelessness figures. So being the inquisitive soul that I am I asked for the reason for the spike in homelessness.  So Filintshire got back in touch with me. And stated that:

The Housing (Wales) Act 2014, potentially requires more decisions to be made in respect of each homeless applicant.   The “Act” places much more emphasis on preventing homelessness than the legislation that preceded it.

The law also increases the amount of time that someone can contact the council for help up to 56 days.  The law now requires that the council work towards prevention rather than cure. This is an amazing change in policy! The reason that more people are presenting as homeless is that they are now presenting themselves as potential homeless.

This shows that a lot of effort is being made on this area.  It also shows that Wales  is doing something special.  They are trying to stop homelessness  AT THE SOURCE.  Prevention is better than cure.  Makes you feel quite good about the Welsh government doesn't it?