Homelessness Action Team February 2008 update

This update is aimed at those with a role in preventing or tackling homelessness, giving you news about the role of the team, examples from a range of organisations and other useful information. We want you to contribute so please send information to hatenquiries@housingcorp.gsx.gov.uk

Local area agreements

A Local Area Agreement (LAA) is a three-year agreement between central government (represented by the regional government office), the local authority and its partners in an area (working through the local strategic partnership, LSP) to improve public services.

The LSPs will be able to set themselves up to 35 improvement targets by choosing from the national ‘basket’ of indicators set by all government departments. Negotiations for LAAs will take place at the country or shire level rather than the district level.

There is no specific indicator on homelessness within the national set of 198 indicators. There are indicators relating to Supporting People, temporary accommodation and decent homes within which homelessness can be included. Furthermore there are other indirect indicators that tackling homelessness will contribute towards achieving, such as reducing re-offending, reducing substance misuse etc.

The LSPs submitted a long list of potential targets in January. The Government Offices and the LSPs will negotiate what should be in the final 35 between now and the end of March. The Minister will then sign off all the LAAs in June.

It is vital that housing organisations understand and communicate the need for housing and homelessness related targets to be included. It is also your opportunity to show how your work helps to deliver the outcomes of the LAA. Now’s the time to influence the LSPs in your area. Please pass this information on to the person in your organisation that may be able to influence the LSP.

Lessons from HAT's first year

There are some key messages that can be drawn from the HAT’s first year:

Effective partnership working is key to developing services. There are many factors that contribute to making partnerships successful but personal relationships appears to be the most important. Feedback to us shows that relationships are best where people have worked together over a period of time.
Organisations need to understand and use the data available to them. In some cases the way in which data is collected and recorded needs to be improved to ensure that it is a true reflection of the services being provided (especially CORE data). Otherwise, there is a great opportunity to use the information available to review the services that are provided and their outcomes. Housing associations also have a mass of information that could be very valuable in informing local housing and homelessness strategies if it could be collated in a consistent manner.
There are many myths that need to be dispelled around the performance of housing associations in tackling homelessness. This is another reason to get the data correct and then to analyse it. There are many anecdotal stories of individual cases but the data tends to indicate a different picture. The role of supported housing provided by housing associations is vital. Performance on the use of general needs housing is more mixed but associations appear to play less of a role around homelessness where partnership working is poor.
We need to focus on the most important issues. We hear fairly regularly that there just isn’t sufficient supply of affordable homes and what is being built is too small to meet the needs of homeless families. It is true that investment in the future needs to consider these issues and, again, we need to be using the data we hold to inform those decisions. However, to have an impact now to reduce homelessness and the number of families in temporary accommodation organisations need to look at the services they provide and how the existing housing stock is used. This means we need to:

understand what is happening in terms of the lettings process and who is being housed where, aiming for greater efficiency in this process;
know who is living in the housing stock both in terms of under-occupation and overcrowding but also to find illegal occupation;
find new methods to provide accommodation rather than just relying on the traditional Housing Corporation grant programme; and
explore new ways to work with the private sector to make this housing more accessible for homeless households and others with a range of housing needs.

There are some very good examples of how organisations have worked together sub-regionally or regionally to tackle homelessness. The outcomes show these partnerships can have a real impact. Most housing associations are very keen to support further sub-regional or regional working because it often reflects their area of operation, making it more effective to plan at that level. The HAT will be looking to spend more time supporting such approaches.
The housing agenda is developing fast given that it is one of the main priorities for the Government. Homelessness remains a priority but organisations are also being asked to respond on a number of other issues including increasing mobility, reducing overcrowding, providing a wider range of housing options and tackling worklessness. Some organisations have looked for guidance on how to reflect all these issues in the Homelessness Action Plan.

Plans for HATs second year

The Housing Corporation and CLG have agreed that the HAT will continue until the end of March 2009. This gives the team opportunity to meet more housing associations and to complete greater in depth work with those associations that it has already had contact with, supporting them to deliver the Homelessness Action Plans that they developed during the HAT’s first year. The team will also be able to do more in other areas of the country, extending its priorities to cover Liverpool, Yorkshire, the East Region and some specific housing associations in the South East and South West. We are keen to develop more area based joint working to tackle homelessness and to reduce the use of temporary accommodation. We will be targeting ways to achieve such joint approaches within local authority areas, sub-regionally and regionally.

The remit of the team is also expanding to cover issues such as overcrowding, housing options and worklessness. These issues are closely linked to tackling homelessness so we have often discussed them with organisations, making this an obvious extension of our work.

If you have ideas on how the team can do more or if you want to know what we are doing in your area please contact us.

Progress on action plans

It is one of the expectations in the Housing Corporation’s Homelessness Strategy that housing associations will review their services and produce a homelessness action plan. Most of the housing associations that the HAT met with during our first year have now produced action plans or are in the process of doing so. This means that there are many examples available, and colleagues in other associations, that you can learn from if you are still think about how to produce you plan.

Just a quick recap; we recommend that your action plan includes the following:

Corporate commitments,
Key data giving trends and comparisons,
Your nominated Homelessness Champion,
A summary of existing services that tackle homelessness,
Consultation completed,
SMART actions (the most important bit!), and
How you will monitor and report on the action plan.

We’ve now seen many action plans and have the following tips that may be useful:

The number of actions does not need to be that great, providing they will make a real difference. ‘Continuing to attend meetings’ isn’t as valuable as ‘introduce a mortgage rescue scheme’. This is also the first time associations have been expected to write a homelessness action plan so you may recognise that you will need to add further actions at the first year review to reflect what you have learned.
Keep the summary of existing services fairly short, identifying where there may be gaps in services. Some early action plans were all about what the association currently does and very little to say what would change.
Some associations have used the opportunity of pulling together their work on homelessness to produce a shorter ‘glossy’ publication that can be sent to partners, etc.
Consultation is important. Identify your key partners and find the right way to get them involved. This can be important if there are actions to work with those partners.

We have learned from the action plans already produced so we have updated or action plan template. The latest version is now available.

Good examples

We continue to find many examples of different ways in which housing associations prevent and tackle homelessness. To find out more about any of those listed below please contact us.

Wakefield & District Housing Trust operates a website, www.askted.org.uk, that provides a range of information to improve the financial position of its customers
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Marches Housing Association has agreed a homelessness protocol with Herefordshire Council that commits the organisation to various actions. For example, it includes early identification of tenants at risk of eviction because of rent arrears and proactive interventions by both association and council staff.
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Elgar Housing Association and Herefordshire Council offer a mortgage rescue scheme, open to those who are able to raise sufficient capital to meet 25% of the purchase price. We are very keen to hear more about other mortgage rescue schemes.

Events

These are some of the events being organised that may be of interest to those working around homelessness. If you know of future events please let us know so we can include them.

Shelter Homelessness Prevention Conference
Guildford, 11th March 2008

CLG Homelessness Summits aimed at local authorities
Plymouth, 27th February 2008
Bristol, 28th February 2008
Nottingham, 19th March 2008

CIH Seminars – Choice based lettings
Leeds, 21st February 2008
London’ 28th February 2008

CIH Housing Advice Conference
London, 18th March 2008