Updated 07.06.13
What 41 Projects Achieved in a Year
In a review of the first year of projects funded by the Homelessness Transition Fund, Homeless Link found that, not only were 94% of the people they helped still in services or living independently, but that services had supported a fifth more people than expected.
The Homelessness Transition Fund was set up to finance effective support services to tackle rough sleeping. After a review of 41 funded projects, Homeless Link found a number of common success factors.
It has published a showcase of some of those projects, which demonstrates that homelessness services are prepared to rise to the challenge - A Year of Transition.
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Support for Councils to Meet the Homelessness Gold Standard Challenge on Bed and Breakfast Accommodation
The Government has decided to make up to £1.8 million available for 2013 to 2014 to enable local authorities to develop innovative and sustainable solutions to the problems that are driving up the use of bed and breakfast accommodation.
The Department for Communities and Local Government is now inviting bids for this funding from those authorities with the most acute problem. Sixteen local authorities who have reported more than 10 families in bed and breakfast accommodation for longer than 6 weeks (including cases pending review) have been invited to bid for this money.
These are Barking and Dagenham, Birmingham, Brent, Crawley, Croydon, Dacorum, Hammersmith and Fulham, Harrow, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Milton Keynes, Redbridge, Reigate and Banstead, Tower Hamlets, Wandsworth and Westminster.
Click here for further details.
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Service to Prevent Homelessness Amongst Ex-offenders
A new programme aimed at preventing homelessness and re-offending by newly released prisoners and supporting their families during and after the prison term has been launched today.
Shelter Scotland, along with Sacro and Inverness Badenoch and Strathspey Citizens Advice Bureau, officially launched SPAN Scotland (Supporting Prisoners Advice Network) at an event attended by the Housing and Welfare Minister Margaret Burgess MSP, ex-offenders and their families at Perth Prison.
SPAN Scotland will provide housing support and advice to over 1,800 offenders from Grampian, Perth and Inverness prisons before and after release over the next three years.
Each case of reoffending prevented by SPAN Scotland is set to reduce the public purse burden by more than £32,370 per prisoner per year.
Funded by £889,317 from the Big Lottery Fund, SPAN Scotland will provide advice, support and advocacy for successful re-settlement to avoid homelessness - a key factor in re-offending.
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Latest Statutory Homelessness Statistics Released
The latest national statistics on statutory homelessness, for January to March 2013, were released on 6 June 2013 and can be accessed via this link.
Posted 12.06.13
Welfare reform, particularly cuts to housing benefit such as the Bedroom Tax, will drive homelessness upwards in Wales, research unveiled at the Welsh Assembly revealed.
The Homelessness Monitor: Wales is a five-year study by Heriot-Watt University and the University of York for Crisis, the national charity for single homeless people.
The research measures the impacts of the economic downturn and the policies of both the Welsh and UK governments on homelessness in the country.
It found that statutory homelessness applications and acceptances have been rising in Wales since 2009/10, but more modestly and less consistently than in England.
There are anecdotal reports of a recent rise in rough sleeping in Cardiff and elsewhere in Wales, but no means of verifying these accounts statistically because the data available is very limited.
The Welsh government is using its newly-devolved housing powers positively, the research finds, with the forthcoming Welsh Housing Bill expected to contain new reforms to the statutory homelessness framework that will introduce a more prevention-focused approach to better prevent people from becoming homeless.
However, while still less acute than that in England, pressure on affordable rented housing is continuing to intensify in Wales.
The research warns that, like elsewhere in the UK, rising homelessness will accelerate over the next few years as a result of the combined impact of the prolonged economic downturn and welfare reform.
The biggest concern in Wales is the new 'under-occupation penalty' within Housing Benefit for working age social tenants, estimated to impact on as many as 44,000 social tenants in Wales (19% of all social tenants, and almost half of those of working age and in receipt of housing benefit). In particular because of the limited capacity to assist those affected to move to smaller accommodation.
And as elsewhere in the UK, in Wales there are a host of concerns about practical aspects of the introduction of Universal Credit, as well as the lowered level of benefits that will be payable to lone parents and larger families. The national benefit cap is expected to restrict benefits for approx 1,500 households in Wales, including 6,000 children.
