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Housing and Community Safety Policy and Scrutiny Committee
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18 October 2022 |
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Report of the Director of Housing, Economy and Regeneration |
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Report on the Resettlement Services 2022 update including winter provision and strategy update
Summary
1
This paper updates the
Housing & Community Safety
Scrutiny Committee on the current homelessness situation and the
winter night provision for rough sleepers and single homeless
people in York.
2
In addition, it advises on the wider
homeless service and the current homelessness and rough sleeping
strategy and relevant developments.
Recommendation:
3 Scrutiny is asked to note this information and asked to make comment and recommendations on the issues raised.
4
Reason:
To update the Committee on homelessness situation and the winter
night provision for rough sleepers and single homeless people in
York.
Background
The Current Homelessness situation
5 City of York Council is currently in a partnership with other organisations across York, working under the 2018-2023 Preventing Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Together strategy. This partnership approach is well established, operating effectively for many years, and continues to work hard to rise to the challenges of tackling all forms of homelessness. These challenges have continued to be further complicated by the covid pandemic and its aftermath and also the current cost of living crisis. Despite this, we continue to provide a high quality Housing Options Service and a nationally recognised advanced Resettlement Service.
6
As part of the ongoing response, the
team worked hard to ensure everyone had a place to sleep which was
safe and minimised the risk of covid infection. This was supported
by funding from central government. We are now moving back to a pre
pandemic use of emergency beds in supported accommodation services,
without the reliance on hotels and bed and breakfast, so that these
can be used for more bespoke support pathways towards independent
living. We have retained relationships with local business so that
we can utilise this extra accommodation should it be needed due to
increased and excessive demand.
Note: We are not currently able to provide the full range of
statistics around homelessness and prevention at present. The
reporting on this from Open Housing is being worked on across teams
to ensure the information is available in full and is accurate.
This information forms a statutory performance return to government
as well as being used locally for information and performance
management. An update will be provided to Scrutiny Committee once
available.
2022-2023 Winter night Provision
7 This year we will deliver the winter night provision for rough sleepers without the need to adapt to all the extra requirements around infection control due to Covid. This provision will be a combination of emergency beds and supported accommodation, utilising hotel rooms if needed where available.
8 On 1 November 2022, we will activate our winter night provision for rough sleepers and single homeless people. This offers direct access to safe and warm accommodation during the winter period from 1 Nov ‘21 to 28 Feb ‘22. The work of service providers, whether statutory, voluntary or faith based, is keeping the number of people sleeping rough as close to zero as is possible. The service will continue to house people over winter despite the extra challenges that cold weather brings.
9 It is worth mentioning that this year we activated the SWEP provision during the summer heatwaves. On top of our usual offers of accommodation we also provided hydration, showers, shade and summer clothing during the extreme heat.
10 This winter we will offer a minimum of 17 extra beds over winter. As rough sleeper numbers are low this offer is currently effectively managed but should there be a sudden increase in rough sleeping we can utilise hotels and bed and breakfast until we can move them on in to resettlement services.
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Addition winter beds this winter period – 1 Nov to 28 Feb
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winter bed offer |
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Peasholme centre – offer of 4 emergency beds, 5 in absolute emergency utilising a back office interview room |
5 |
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Howe Hill – offer of 5 Emergency beds |
5 |
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Union Terrace Hostel – Offering 2 emergency beds but do prioritise empty rooms on this basis |
2 |
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Robinson Court – 1 emergency bed |
1 |
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Yes Below Zero (flat 2 Howe Hill site) – 4 emergency beds |
4 |
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Totals |
17 |
11 We are also able to utilise the following at short notice if needed:
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Salvation Army Nap-pad provision that can accommodate up to 4 rough sleepers in an emergency. |
4 |
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Hotel Partners – relationships in place and could be utilised if needed |
Dependant on availability and need |
A triage approach is used to decide where to place people and those deemed to have complex needs are prioritised into the supported accommodation schemes where skilled staff are on duty 24/7 to support them.
Housing Options, Supported Accommodation and Resettlement
Services
12 In addition to providing services as usual extra burdens continue to be placed on the teams due to covid related requirements. This includes the effect on sickness levels and isolation of covid positive staff, there is increased numbers of staff vacancies and difficulties in recruitment.
13 Contacts to the Housing Options service have increased exponentially in requests for service from 80 per week pre pandemic to around 200 per week post pandemic for the Housing Option team have put increasing pressure on staff and resources, although we have managed to fill vacant posts in the service, new staff take approximately 6 month to induct and train so they can carry full caseloads. The work of housing options is a thankless task and is misunderstood by many service providers, the process of statutory homelessness application is a legislative one and driven by law and can appear harsh to those that are well meaning misinformed, this can cause lots of criticism towards the housing options team and individuals within the team meaning maintaining moral is becoming increasingly more challenging.
14 Initiatives, such ‘everybody in’ (2020), protect and vaccinate and additional resources to combat rough sleeping successfully over the last few years demonstrates the continued commitment locally and nationally to end rough sleeping. we are pleased that we now have 3 year allocation of funding from central government for York’s Rough Sleeping Initiative funding . This means a more consistent approach and better job security for staff. This funding announcement did come with a reduction to the yearly amounts we had previously received.
15 The efforts delivered through Rough Sleepers Initiative and the resettlement services have led to a reduction in the number of people sleeping rough in York over the last few years from a peak of 29 to low single figure over the last few years. In the event of a change in circumstances or an extreme weather event, our approach allows us to provide a significant increase in emergency capacity if required all year round as well as over the winter period. The extra winter provision can also be available through March and April should we have adverse weather during this period. As previously mentioned it can also be activated in the event of a heatwave during the summer months. There is also a phased approach to closing down the extra winter beds to ensure no one is returned to the streets or made homeless just because the winter is over. The service continues to work on expanding long term provision to support the goal of ending rough sleeping.
16
This year, we are yet to hear about
if we will receive any Cold Weather funding from DLUHC to offset
the additional cost of an increase in emergency bed provision
during winter. In previous years there was additional centralised
funding due to covid. We expect a return to more conventional form
of funding going forward.
17
This 3 year allocation we
received of £1,349,100
Rough Sleeper Initiative (RSI) funding for a variety of front line
workers which has supported our ‘in reach’ work with
rough sleepers currently in accommodation. This has significantly
reduced rough sleeping in the city. There was a reduction in
York’s funding allocation and the DLUHC made the decision to
not fund for additional workers within the Salvation Army Early
Intervention team. While this was disappointing the DHLUC were
clear from the submission of RSI funding bids (agreed by all
partners) through to allocation, that we would not receive the same
amount of funding and decided to cut this part of the bid due to
lower levels of rough sleeping. To mitigate some of this funding
cut the rough sleeper navigators are picking up the majority of
outreach work, leaving the salvation army to provide street walks,
drop in and referrals into emergency and supported
accommodation.
RSI staff support in numbers for the
next 3 years until 2025:
· 1 Rough Sleepers Coordinator
· 3.5 Rough Sleeper Housing Navigators
· 2 MEAM workers and personalisation monies (MEAM Making Every Adult Matter)
· 1 Private Rented Sector Officer and 1 Private Rented Sector Support Worker.
· 2 mental Health Workers. Fully funded year 1 with partial funding years 2 and 3 we will need to secure additional funds for years 2 and 3 from other areas or funding pots.
18 We have successfully accommodated all of York’s rough sleepers during Covid restrictions and beyond in addition to working hard over the last four years to reduce official rough sleeping from 29 in 2017 to 4 in 2021. This was an increase on 2020 when the figure was 3 rough sleepers. Our 2022 street count is currently being co-ordinated. There is an uptick in numbers currently and maintaining this low level is going to be very challenging. At present the outreach teams continue to engage with the people who sleep rough to gain an understanding of them and aim to support them off the streets and into safe and secure accommodation.
20 Below is a summary of permanent accommodation offers to people in resettlement who have previously been, or are at threat of, rough sleeping. The current high level of voids in our stock means that we are struggling to move people on from our Supported Accommodation (resettlement and homeless) as well as affecting our Housing First (for those most complex people who struggle with shared accommodation) offer.
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TOTAL housed in Resettlement category |
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2019-20 |
69 |
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2020/21 |
76 |
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2021/22 |
87 |
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2022/23 |
Current 20 to 15/09/2022 there is large backlog of people in gold band resettlement awaiting offers the current supply issues and skills shortages is exacerbating timely move on |
21
Support Workers in our accommodation
and Resettlement Services continue to be very busy offering housing
advice, working to prevent homelessness as well as accommodating
and supporting families and individuals who are often very
vulnerable and have multiple complex needs. People and families
that need a lot of support present real challenges to our services
across and beyond the council. If these needs are left unmet it is
unlikely that settled accommodation will be held on to, resulting
in tenancy failure and repeat homelessness.
22 Use of B&Bs for homeless people is still a necessity and we work to minimise this. We have re-opened Crombie House (family supported housing) temporarily to accommodate families that are homeless that we cannot accommodate at James House, our main supported accommodation for homeless families. Crombie House is ultimately due for redevelopment to provide part of a proposed pathway of supported accommodation for people who need support around mental health.
23 As previously mentioned creating and maintaining a sufficient supply of ‘move on’ options for people with complex needs continues to be a significant challenge with residents sometimes ending up in our supported accommodation services for too long. We are currently working with the York Human Rights Board to explore further support and move on options around Housing First through organisations and communities across York.
24 This year we facilitated our first housing first arrangement with our RSL partner Joseph Rowntree. This piece of work has been very positive and we are hopeful that our other RSL partners will also begin providing housing first tenancies
25 There is tremendously high expectation from other services (many of which are facing high demand and financial pressures) to house people including discharge from hospital and prison, sometimes without any planning or little notice. Many people presenting as homeless have needs that are so complex that they require more support / care than housing can provide. We continue to work with a range of services to share resources and knowledge to ensure as many presentations are as planned as possible. We are also aiming to work as flexibly as possible offering bespoke packages of housing and support/care so it is possible for general needs housing to meet some of these needs. This creates a very challenging environment for staff working across Housing Services with expectations often far exceeding our ability to provide what people want or need.
26 Unplanned presentation from people with complex needs often creates short term solutions to long term problems that require more than just housing. Services engaged with long term rough sleepers during the pandemic and ‘Everyone In’ initiative and we have used Ordnance Lane (due for redevelopment) for a rough sleeping triage service and additional accommodation.
27 Resources from our developing Mental Health accommodation pathway have come on line so that we can support more people who previously avoided engaging with services or were too chaotic to accommodate in shared supported housing. We are creating multi agency packages of support and care by increasing the number of housing first offers with wrap-around support to help move this cohort on to more settled accommodation. It is important to note that housing first is only appropriate for a small cohort of complex individuals and is very resource intense.
Housing firsts accommodated
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18/19 |
19/20 |
20/21 |
21/22 |
22/23 |
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1 |
4 |
5 |
2. |
7 |
There are more 5 agreed and pending accommodation.
We
obtained additional resources to expand our resettlement offer
through capital and revenue grant funding (Rough Sleeping
Accommodation Programme – RSAP) and purchased six 1 bed flats
for rough sleepers (these are specific for this purpose for the
next 30 years). These are former council homes which have been
offered up on Right to Buy first refusal and checked off with the
Housing Management team. We are focused on properties without front
doors opening on to internal communal areas, and we successfully
completed the purchase of these properties by April 2022. We also
recruited to the RSAP support worker post and all 6 of these
properties have been let. These properties are medium term lets and will
be used only for rough sleepers for the next 30 years.
29 Approximately 4 % of customers accessing the service state they are from the LGBTQ community. We continue to roll out training across the Housing Options and Support Team and have included this training into the mandatory training for new staff and refresher training. We also provide individualised support packages to support people including around LGBTQ issues and are about to embark on a round of refresher training for staff.
Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy
30
The current homelessness and rough
sleeping strategy 2018 – 2023 is due to be refreshed in 2023.
A copy of the current strategy is available as annex A
31
The government recently launched the
refreshed strategy on Rough Sleeping ‘Ending Rough Sleeping
for Good’. The refreshed Homelessness strategy will need to
reference this. A copy is attached at annex BC. Building on the
commitment to end rough sleeping by 2027 the emphasis will be on
prevention and tailored support with three core components:
a) Improving housing
affordability and accessibility by maximising affordable
housing supply and delivering reform for a fairer private rented
sector.
b) By helping local authorities and partners to better prevent
rough sleeping fully embedding the Homelessness Reduction Act
approach, a new assessment framework for rough sleepers backed up
by Rough Sleeping initiative funding.
c) Providing targeted action for people we know are most at risk of
rough sleeping using whole system information and
32 In York a review of the Resettlement Pathway has taken place over the last year with a view to inform the future of these services and to inform the procurement of the Adults Wellbeing contract and related services which forms .
33 This committee had an update on the review earlier in the year. The review has been on hold for the last couple of months pending a decision on the timing of re-procurement of the Adults Wellbeing contract which forms a large part of the overall contract. This runs until January currently but is likely to be extended
34 The PowerPoint annex D and the paper at annex C (provided to an earlier scrutiny meeting) provides information on the review and agreed themes to be taken forward. These are likely to be embedded in to the refreshed York Homelessness Strategy for resettlement of rough sleepers alongside an emphasis on being better at identification and prevention across the ‘system’ in line with the updates government strategy.
Implications
35 Not applicable.
Contact Details
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Authors: Denis Southall Head of Housing Management Services
Tim Carroll Service Manager Housing Options and Support Team tim.carroll@york.gov.uk
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Chief officer responsible for this report Tracey Carter –Director of Housing Economy and Regeneration
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Report Approved |
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03/10/2022 |
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Wards Affected: |
All |
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For further information please contact the author of the report |
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Annexe
Annex A – Current homelessness strategy
Annex B – Ending Rough Sleeping for Good
Annex C – Resettlement review update note
Annex D – Resettlement review update presentation