Agenda item

To receive a presentation on temporary accommodation.

Contributors:

Isobel Darby, Cabinet Member for Housing and Homelessness

Nigel Dicker, Service Director Housing and Regulatory Services

Members received an update from the Cabinet Member for Housing and Homelessness, Isobel Darby, on the temporary accommodation provision in Buckinghamshire. The Council had a statutory duty to provide accommodation to persons and households who the Council had reason to believe were homeless, eligible and of priority need. When these thresholds were met, or there was reason to believe these thresholds were met, there was an immediate duty to provide accommodation. There were seven temporary accommodation sites across Buckinghamshire and currently 161 statutory homeless households on the housing register. 95 mainly former rough sleepers had been accommodated due to the pandemic and there were currently five known rough sleepers in Buckinghamshire. Each known rough sleeper had been offered accommodation. At the time of the meeting, there were around 4,700 households seeking housing via Bucks Home Choice. Of this figure, 600 were people aged over 55 seeking older person accommodation and over 900 were households who were considered to be overcrowded. 

Around 30% of homelessness was caused by the loss of private rented accommodation. The Government were looking at how better protection could be put in place for private renters. Another key cause of around 30% of homelessness was an eviction from a parent or relative. In these cases, the Council tried to mediate to prevent this from occurring as long as this was a safe option for the potential applicant. There were two types of temporary accommodation:

·         Section 188 which was an interim arrangement whilst officers investigated the circumstances

·         Section 193 once enquiries were completed and found the homelessness was unintentional and cannot be relieved. Section 188 accommodation automatically became Section 193 accommodation once the investigation had been concluded.

The update included some examples of accommodation in Saunderton, Griffin Place, Chesham and Taplow. Accommodation was currently being built in Desborough Road, High Wycombe. This building comprised of 58 one bedroom flats of modular design construction and would be ready to open in Summer 2021. As at June 2020, Buckinghamshire Council had 278 households in temporary accommodation. For comparison purposes, this was measured as persons per 1000 households and was as follows:-

·         Buckinghamshire 1.28

·         South East 2.82

·         England 4.18

·         London 17.69

Following the update, Members had questions for the Cabinet Member and were advised that:-

·         The Council was mindful of the potential for private rented accommodation evictions to increase but the service was in a good position to manage this.

·         It was a noted trend that some London Boroughs had allocated a portion of their temporary accommodation in Buckinghamshire which meant that Buckinghamshire Council’s service would likely need to assist in future. This had the potential for Buckinghamshire Council’s adult and social services to become involved.

·         The accommodation being built in High Wycombe provided a self-contained flat, had its own front door and was fitted to a high standard. Noise transfer between each apartment would be mitigated through a void space and insulation. Each apartment was also triple glazed. When the project was first considered, officers had inspected a similar modular building design in Ladywell, Lewisham, and had been impressed by the quality and lack of noise transference.

·         The Council was trying to assist break the cycle of rough sleeping by helping those with high needs such as mental health issues or alcohol and drug addictions. The purchase of a property was being completed to offer temporary accommodation in these high need cases.

·         There was a national home swapping website that meant individual users could make arrangements to swap accommodation. To use this, each user would need to have either a long-term or permanent tenancy. Registered providers also assisted with cross-boundary moves.

·         The former District authorities had changed their policies whereby a new applicant would not automatically become a high priority in the banding if mediation was available as an option.

·         Consideration could be given to moving the older person accommodation age bracket from 55 to 65 however it was challenging to know when the right age to move would be. One of the benefits of having the age set to 55 was that it had the potential to release a family home to a waiting household sooner.

·         It was difficult to keep track of those that had refused the service’s offer of temporary accommodation but the team monitored these as best as possible.

Members thanked the Cabinet Member for the update and congratulated the service for the work they had done to reduce the number of rough sleepers in Buckinghamshire. The Committee saw merit in a site visit being arranged in future to visit the temporary accommodation being built in High Wycombe (subject to Covid restrictions).