Cornwall Roadshow 19 th August 2008 Cathy Hadfield Specialist Advisor, Homelessness

Regional Resource Team Three Regional Resource Teams North Team – covering North West, Yorkshire and Humberside and North East Midlands Team – covering East and West Midlands Southern Team – covering East, South East and South West

Southern Team Helen Keats – Head of Service David Powell – Supporting People Tracey Brushett – Homelessness Tracy Hendren – Homelessness Cathy Hadfield - Homelessness

Regional Resource Team To support and co-ordinate work between the GOs and Communities and Local Government To work with LAs to Deliver the TA target Address rough sleeping Support Places of Change programme Ensure health needs of vulnerable clients are identified and services appropriately commissioned Support overcrowding pathfinders Promote enhanced housing options and links to employment Highlight good practice around worklessness in social housing Ensure homelessness prevention remains a key priority for commissioners and partners

National Picture Cornwall Roadshow 19 th August 2008 Tracy Hendren Specialist Advisor, Homelessness

Key Themes Looking Forward The Housing and Regeneration Bill (Housing Green Paper); Ensuring social housing acts as a platform for economic and social mobility (Hills review); Regulation of social housing to encourage better management, new supply and tenant empowerment (Cave review); Joining up delivery of housing and regeneration (Homes and Communities Agency);

5 Year Strategy to Reduce Homelessness Preventing homelessness Tackling wider causes & symptoms Improved access to settled homes Sustaining reductions In rough sleeping Supporting vulnerable people Halve use of temporary accommodation by 2010

Trends: homelessness and temporary accommodation 79,500 households were living in temporary accommodation in England on 31 December 2007 Down by 11% compared to the same time last year and under 80,000 for the first time since 2001 Homelessness acceptances in England down from around 135,000 in 2003/04 to 73,000 in 2006/07

Homelessness prevention: continued focus  Local authority Homelessness Strategies - legislative requirement to publish revised strategies this year (if not revision has been done since original strategy in July 2003)  Increased investment - to support services such as mediation, rent deposits and home visits: £200m for local authorities and voluntary sector over next 3 years – prevention grant  Continued focus on implementing good practice guide and prevention toolkit  Debt advice: key relationship between local authorities and Citizens’ Advice Bureaux  New National Housing Advice Service – joint working agreements between Shelter and Citizen’s Advice Bureau

Homelessness prevention: Feedback from local authorities Most effective interventions (local authority survey 2007):  Rent Deposit or Rent Bond Schemes  Mediation/Counselling  Working with existing or prospective landlords to provide other housing solutions  Home Visits to discuss options with parents or friends or relatives who may exclude part of their household  Local “Homelessness Prevention Fund”  Early Advice

Temporary Accommodation - next steps  Temporary Accommodation Action Plans  Supply and Demand Models  2007 LA Survey – most effective activities to reduce Temporary Accommodation: Increased Prevention Improved RSL nomination arrangements Making use of private sector TA visiting programme to provide options advice Increasing percentage of lettings to homelessness Conversion of own stock TA

Rough sleeping Work underway to update the rough sleeping strategy 10 years on Will focus on renewed drive to reduce numbers on the streets, alongside action to improve outcomes for former rough sleepers Updated local authority homelessness strategies: need to include focus on single homeless Rough Sleeping in Rest of EnglandRough Sleeping in London

“Places of Change” £90million invested in around 178 projects Not just a housing pathway but Engagement, Education, Employment Delivering a culture change - “Not more beds but better beds” Investing a further £70million in Hostels will cease to be places of last resort, but instead will be centres of excellence and choice which positively change lives

Tackling youth homelessness Commitment to end, by 2010, the use of bed and breakfast accommodation for 16 and 17 year olds 16 and 17 year olds in B&B fallen by almost half from approx 1,000 in September 2006 to 550 in December 2007 Improved access to homelessness mediation across the country Creation of a national supported lodgings development scheme providing accommodation, advice and mediation services Centres of Excellence created to share good practice – South West - Wilthshire Best practice website launched –

Related agendas … Tackling overcrowding – new action plan with £15m to support 38 pathfinders Independent review of private rented housing to deliver a better product The Extra Enhanced Housing Options have been confirmed, including linking housing and employment advice Working Neighbourhood Fund £1.5 billion programme working in most deprived areas: important for housing sector to engage