Agenda item

(a)       That the report be noted; and

(b)       That the Committee support the work being undertaken by the Housing and Prevention Service.

The Chief Executive introduced an update report which outlined the work being carried out by the Housing & Prevention Service.

The Housing & Prevention Senior Manager provided a detailed report on the following areas, as detailed within the report:-

• Statutory Homeless Services
• Funding Homeless Services
• Demand for Services
• Positive Homeless Outcomes
• National Policy – Homelessness
• Priority Need – Rough Sleepers
• Use of Homeless Accommodation
• Challenging Housing Market Conditions

Councillor Glyn Banks thanked the Housing & Prevention Senior Manager for an excellent report which he said had been well presented.  He also thanked the Chief Executive for his dedication to the issues around homelessness which had been evident over a number of years.  He said that the Council were dealing with people who were at their lowest ebb and said that the Council dealt with this well and provided an example of where assistance had been provided to a tenant within his ward. 

In response to Councillor Bank’s concerns around private landlords evicting tenants, the Housing & Prevention Senior Manager advised that this issue was dealt with on a daily basis and said that often, once a tenant had received an eviction notice, the trust between them was negatively affected.  Whilst the Council did not want to add any additional pressure to the situation it was important that tenants were clear on what their legal rights were.    

Councillor David Evans said that the Service Manager Housing Assets and Housing & Prevention Senior Manager were excellent officers who had provided excellent reports to the Committee.  He referred to the reasons for homeless presentation, shown at Appendix 2 of the report, and asked why the number for prison leavers was high as he believed the Council would be informed if a prisoner was to be released.  He asked what the ‘Others’ category referred to and whether any data was held for people with a military service background.  The Housing & Prevention Senior Manager explained that the data for the reasons for homeless presentations was currently unvalidated due to systems and also a person could present with one reason and once officers look into the case it could be established that there were other needs as well.  Work on the back-office data system for housing support and homelessness was being carried out to ensure better clarity on data in the future. 

The Housing & Prevention Senior Manager reported that the Council do see some veterans presenting as homeless, but this was a small number.  The Armed Forces Covenant and Common Allocation Policy does extend additional duties to veterans.  He also reported that there were currently 2 dedicated prison leaver liaison officers who worked closely with prisons.  Where a notice has been issued, the Council seek to treat prions leavers the same as everyone else.  Notification is sent to the Council if a prison leaver has no home to go to and an assessment would be completed within 56 days of when they were due to be homeless.  Notifications of release were not as prompt as they used to be, and the Council were finding some short notice on release dates.  

The Cabinet Member for Housing & Regeneration thanked the Housing & Prevention Senior Manager and his team for the excellent support provided to people across Flintshire.  He said that this was a challenging and difficult service area with homelessness being one of the most traumatic experience a person could experience in their lives.  He said that years of housing policy failure had made the situation worse and that it was only recently that as a Local Authority we were allowed to build Council houses.  During that time the demand for social housing had continued to grow.  He said that the difficulties with the private rented sector were acute with local housing allowance not keeping pace with the market and no single property in Flintshire currently meeting the local housing allowance threshold.  This required national action for the housing allowance to be raised in line with the increase in rents.

The recommendations, as outlined within the report, were moved by Councillor David Evans and seconded by Councillor Tina Claydon. 

RESOLVED:

(a)       That the report be noted; and

(b)       That the Committee support the work being undertaken by the Housing and Prevention Service.