Homelessness Action Group: rapid rehousing and local partnerships across Wales

Jon Sparkes, Chief Executive

28.02.2020

Not long before the Action Group’s February meeting we delivered a very advanced draft of our main report to the Welsh Government. It answers the first question the Welsh Government asked, which was about the overall framework of policies, approaches and plans to end homelessness in Wales (what ending homelessness actually looks like).

There’s one very important process to finish before we finalise the report, which is to sense-check the recommendations with people who have experience of homelessness, to give full assurance that our report is sound. This input has been vital to date and this will be the second major Action Group consultation with people who have experience of homelessness.

This week the Welsh Government also confirmed that the Minister for Local Government and Housing, Julie James AM, will make a statement in response to this report on Tuesday 17 March in the National Assembly for Wales. The Minister’s statements to date assure me that she would like to come up with an action plan to take the Action Group’s recommendations forward. This will require further agreement and consultation between the Welsh Government and its partners, not just from housing services but physical and mental health, social care, education, and some non-devolved services like prisons and probation. I anticipate this will take a reasonable amount of time to get right but can be done with some pace as well.

The Action Group’s February meeting took the form of workshops to discuss our response to the remaining two questions the Minister asked. These are different in nature from the previous work the Action Group has been doing, and are a lot more about practical delivery of solutions than overall approaches and policies:

• How do we put the delivery of rapid and permanent rehousing at the heart of preventing, tackling and ending homelessness?
• How can we ensure joined-up local partnerships and plans are put in place to prevent, tackle and end homelessness throughout Wales?

The Action Group’s report from last October, on preventing and ending rough sleeping, already recommended that a rapid rehousing approach should be the default solution to people already experiencing homelessness. This approach complements a renewed focus on preventing people losing their homes much earlier, so that more people do not need rehousing support in the first place.

The concept is simple to describe: people helped into safe and settled housing as quickly as possible with all the support they need. This is what making homelessness brief means but also it must ensure an episode of homelessness is non-repeated, i.e. a one-off so that people are not pushed back into homelessness. I don’t think we should underestimate what a shift this will be from our current approach.

While it is no one’s ultimate aim for people experiencing homelessness to have long spells in temporary accommodation, often unsuitable for people’s needs and sometimes even dangerous, that is what happens. But there is definitely a role in the system for emergency accommodation that is of high quality and dignified, as the Action Group’s report on tackling and ending rough sleeping said.

The recent Crisis report from Scotland has looked at local authority plans to transition to a rapid rehousing approach as the default and gives us some valuable learning for Wales. Crucial elements of success include getting an adequate supply of various types of safe, settled housing for people, together with the multi-agency support needed for people to have a home. Again, Scotland’s guidance to local authorities and their partners is a useful reference point. The transition to rapid rehousing is also an example of where ambition and pace need to be balanced. The Minister is clear in her framing of the question that she agrees a rapid rehousing approach should be the default. The challenge now is in setting a strong baseline of data and insight about local populations, homelessness and housing levels, the funding and policy or legislative changes needed, and the length of time the transitions to a rapid rehousing approach should take in each local area or region.

The final question for the Action Group, on joined-up partnerships and plans in local areas, is so closely linked to the rapid rehousing question. We discussed in the Action Group the existing structures for public services planning and strategy and what role they can play. The result should be a cross-public services approach to housing and to making sure homelessness is ended through being rare, brief and non-repeated.

Another crucial element of success is making sure national policy, funding and law – set by the Welsh Government and National Assembly – links to regional approaches and results in local delivery. Communication also needs to work in both directions, so that national, regional and local approaches inform each other. One of the clearest findings from the Action Group’s consultation with people working in housing and homelessness was just how strongly people feel about being recognised professionally and supported in every way to do their job of ending – rather than tackling - homelessness.

We have one more meeting in the diary as an Action Group, to finalise our response to the two remaining questions. As with our previous reports and work, there will also be a lot of work between meetings, and I’m looking forward to presenting and discussing the work of the group when the main report launches.