Homelessness and Affordable Housing Need Duncan Gray Housing Access and Support Statistics Communities Analytical Service Centre for Housing Market Analysis Statistics Training 29 January 2009

Background Housing Need and Demand Assessment Guidance 2008 refers to Homelessness Statistics. Local Housing Strategy guidance identifies Homelessness Strategy as a key part of LHS.

Presentation will cover Homelessness capacity modelling (Waugh Model – 2012 commitment) Common inputs to homelessness modelling and HNDA. Homelessness as a component of affordable housing need. Available homelessness data.

Homelessness capacity (Waugh) model Developed by Andrew Waugh to assist individual councils to assess impact of homelessness/ lettings policies on numbers in temporary accommodation. Particularly useful as councils assessed implications of policies moving towards 2012 homelessness commitment.

Development of all-Scotland model : A. Waugh employed by Scottish Government to develop model to cover all Scottish Local Authorities. SG Purpose: To assess the impact of move towards 2012 homelessness commitment under different sets of assumptions; and guide action on this.

2012 Homelessness Commitment Housing (Scotland) Act: –By 31 Dec 2012 [secondary] legislation will be made to remove the distinction between priority and non-priority homeless. –Before making the legislative change Scottish Ministers must be satisfied that all councils have the capacity to meet this commitment.

Key features of Waugh model (1) Annual from base year to and beyond Key outputs:- Lets needed for priority homeless. Supply of social lets available from LA/ LSVT/ HA. Potential supply of lets from PRS. Numbers in temporary accommodation and number of household days in temporary accommodation

Key features of Waugh model (1) Key inputs: Baseline data for base financial year and projections for each year for:- –Homeless applications and assessments. – target for proportion of homeless assessed priority. –Components of change in LA/ LSVT/ HA housing stock over projection period. –Projected rate of turnover in LA/ LSVT/ HA tenancies over projection period. –Projected decants from demolitions stock over the projections period.

Key model scenarios Supply: –Increased share of LA/ RSL lets to homeless. –Increase in social housing supply. –Changes in RTB. –Possible use of PRS. Demand: –Impact of prevention activity. –Impact of wider economic change. –Changes in lost contact rates.

Link to housing need and demand assessments Homeless households are a component of housing need, not additional to it. –HNDA guidance points to homelessness statistics as a possible source of data on need. –Also, homelessness stats provide a useful cross- check on overall assessments of need.

Link to housing need and demand assessments All homeless households requiring settled accommodation in a year should be less than total affordable housing need. Modelling: Number requiring a let = number of priority assessments * proportion who take up accommodation. –Generally about 2/3 of priority assessments take up a permanent let. –Remaining 1/3 are a mix of ‘lost contact’ those who resolve their own homelessness or those who don’t take up an offer. –Proportion varies by council. If currently higher than higher value is used in model.

Example: By Council: Bramley(2005) v Waugh (06-07 base)

Examples of projections compared

Getting below the surface of homelessness stats (1) Hl1 gathers a wide range of data on each homelessness application. We feed back key summaries to councils homelessness teams quarterly and annually. Housing Statistics website provides details of the HL1 proforma and guidance notes and annually updated reference tables. –Trying to improve these at the moment. –Happy to respond to ad-hoc requests for tables. –Happy to consider additional reference tables for the publication.

Getting below the surface of homelessness stats (2) Key information from HL1 relevant to HNDA: –Household types and age of main applicant of those assessed as homeless. –Prior housing circumstances of those assessed as homeless. –Reasons for homelessness of those assessed as homeless. –Priority/ non-priority assessments. –Whether applicant was on a social housing waiting list. –Outcomes of applications. –Numbers in temporary accommodation at end of each quarter.

Getting below the surface of homelessness stats (3) Key information also relevant to Homelessness Strategies –Characteristics of repeat applicants. –Previous assessments/ outcomes for repeat applicants. –Ethnicity etc. of main applicants. –Applicants previously in armed forces/ looked after. –Rough sleeping. –Postcode of last settled address. –Time taken between application, assessment and outcome. –Priority category. –Support needed/ provided. –Local connection. –Action taken by council and outcome. –Accommodation occupied between application and outcome.

Link to estimates of supply of social lets Both HDNA and homeless capacity modelling require assessments/ projections of affordable supply. Annual number of social lets available to new tenants is main component – projected on the basis of projected stock/ turnover and new supply. For homelessness modelling we:- Separate LA/ LSVT lets from HA lets. Look at implications of possible limits on homeless share of lets. Look at potential role of PRS. Look at decants from planned demolitions programmes.

Example comparison of social lets available Bramley (2005) with Waugh base

Next steps – Model Starting to update model to base. Aiming to have CHMA steering group critique the update. The calculations of demand/ supply of lets for homeless can be closely replicated in an excel workbook. –Developed a workbook which does this and allows affect of key assumptions to be explored. –Will make a copy available through CHMA website. –Workbook also allows key base year inputs to be checked. Workbook can’t replicate the clever maths giving numbers in temporary accommodation. –We can run the model for councils on basis of own assumptions on request.

Next steps – homelessness data Will put a slightly more elaborate guide to homelessness data and use in HNDA on CHMA website along with links and key tables. Worth looking at the data supplier area, and in particular the copy of the current and previous HL1. Happy to run ad-hoc analyses on our database. –Next annual analysis: 08-09: will be Autumn –We can give you most up-to-date data available for your own council.