Showing posts with label Homelessness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Homelessness. Show all posts

Wednesday 8 November 2023

Cllr Tatler on the 'perfect storm' facing Brent Council finances

 Cllr Tatler made no bones about it at Brent Scrutiny last night: Brent Council is facing a 'perfect storm' regarding its finances:

 

 

As already reported by Wembley Matters the combination of increased homelessness (150 families a week seeking help from Brent Council), inflation, rising interest rates, rising private sector rents and reduced private sector rental properties as a result of landlords exiting the market; combined has led to a £13m overspend by the Council.

The Resources and Public Realm Scrutiny Committee delved deeper into the repercussions and possible mitigations last night.  

One focus was the 600 plus empty properties that could easily house the 500 families and single people (858 people in all) currently in expensive bed and breakfast accommodation.  The challenge was how to contact the owners so that the Council could lease the property.  Some councillors there were more than 600 empty properties and asked how the  Council collected the figures. A councillor asked if this coudl be checked against the most recent census. In response Cllr Tatler said that the Council could reactivate the campaign to ask residents to report empty properties.

Contact Empty Property Team

Opening hours: Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm

Monday 6 November 2023

Muhammed Butt joins 118 other council leaders in calling for urgent action by the Chancellor on councils' housing costs

 Brent Council was recently warned by its finance officers about the financial pressures on the Council and the need to make further ‘savings’ that will impact on services. The warning comes in the wake of a substantial increase in the Council’s housing costs as a result of the soaring numbers of homeless people, higher rents in the private sector when placing such families in temporary accommodation, and the shortage of private rented accommodation. There are also pressures on the Adult Social Care budget (higher charges are in the pipeline) and some local authority schools are running deficit budgets.

 

Faced with that situation the leader of Brent Council, Muhammed Butt, has signed a letter along with 118 other council leaders to the Chancellor calling on him to address the homelessness and temporary accommodation crisis that threatens local government’s financial sustainability and the services upon which England’s most vulnerable people rely.

 

The letter is signed by councils from across the country led by Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats, the Green Party and Independents. It follows an emergency summit held last week (Tuesday, 31 October), co-hosted by Eastbourne Borough Council and the District Councils’ Network. 

 

According to the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the cost of temporary accommodation to councils reached £1.7bn last year and it is increasing rapidly.

 

The signatories included 108 district councils – two-thirds of the total. In many parts of the country, district councils are the tier of principal government closest to communities and they oversee services including housing, leisure centres and waste collection. The rising cost of temporary accommodation hits district councils particularly hard due to a large proportion of their budgets being devoted to housing.

 

The Councils are calling for a meeting with the Chancellor ahead of his Autumn Statement to consider their demands:

 

This is the letter:

 

 

Dear Jeremy,

 

The unprecedented pressure on temporary accommodation services

 

An unprecedented number of people are turning to councils as the last option for support when they face homelessness. As councils, we are proud of the help we give to people when they need it, but our situation is becoming untenable. We have had no option but to rapidly escalate our use of temporary accommodation, which is threatening to overwhelm our budgets.  

The level of concern was demonstrated when 158 councils attended an emergency summit on 31st October, organised by the District Councils’ Network (DCN) and Eastbourne Borough Council. The scale of the problem was also shown by a recent DCN survey in which 96% of our member councils reported an increase in use of temporary accommodation – four-fifths of them describing this as ‘significant’. 

The ensuing increase in costs is a critical risk to the financial sustainability of many local authorities and we urge you to act swiftly to ensure we can continue our vital work. The pressure is particularly acute for district councils because housing costs constitute a far bigger proportion of our overall expenditure. 

Without urgent intervention, the existence of our safety net is under threat. The danger is that we have no option but to start withdrawing services which currently help so many families to avoid hitting crisis point. There will also be a knock-on impact on other cherished council services, which councils could also have to scale back, and on other parts of the public sector – such as the NHS – which will be left to pick up the pieces. 

Councils and our partner organisations in health, policing and education, as well as the voluntary sector, have had considerable success in recent years in moving the whole local system towards preventing homelessness, rather than just dealing with the consequences.  

However, the supply of permanent, affordable housing has fallen in many places while the impact of the rising cost of living is making housing too costly for many people. This impacts on the health and wellbeing of households affected. Some areas also experience added pressure due to the placement of asylum seekers in local hotels and other temporary accommodation. 

We do believe there is a way forward, as DCN set out to you in our Autumn Statement submission on 13 October. We are urgently calling on the Government to: 

·       Raise Local Housing Allowance rates to a level that will cover at least 30% of local market rent and commit to annual uprating. 

·       Provide £100m additional funding for Discretionary Housing Payments in 2023-24 and an additional £200m in 2024-25.  

·       Provide a £150m top-up to the Homelessness Prevention Grant for 2024-25. 

·       Review the cap for housing benefit subsidy rate for local authority homelessness placements. 

·       Develop policy to stimulate retention and supply in the privately rented sector. 

·       Give councils the long-term funding, flexibility and certainty needed to increase the supply of social housing. 

Considering the urgency and scale of these matters, we would welcome a meeting with you ahead of the Autumn Statement. 

We firmly believe that action on these issues will ensure that all councils can continue to provide an effective homelessness safety net. We also believe that these measures will be cost effective by ensuring homelessness is prevented, reducing public expenditure in future. 

The human cost of homelessness is immense. With your help we can prevent it worsening.

 

In total, 119 council leaders from across England have signed this letter.

 

 

Thursday 26 October 2023

Council summit on 'stark' crisis in providing homeless safety net within current funding

I recently reported on the financial crisis facing Brent Council due to the rising number of homeless in the borough and the spiralling cost of temporary accommodation.  I have just received notice of this meeting which Brent councillors may be interested in attending.

Over 100 councils will attend an emergency summit taking place on Tuesday 31 October to discuss the escalating social and financial crisis created by the unprecedented demand for temporary accommodation.

 

Hosted by Eastbourne Borough Council and the District Councils’ Network, this summit aims to share insight from the councils attending and will result in a joint cross-party letter to the government ahead of the Autumn Statement urging immediate action.

 

Councillor Stephen Holt, Leader of Eastbourne Borough Council, said:

 

The situation is stark. 

 

Councils provide a safety net for the most vulnerable people who need our help, and that safety net is at real risk of failing. 

 

Figures from the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities have shown that the cost of temporary accommodation to local authorities reached 1.7bn last year and is increasing rapidly. This is wholly unsustainable for councils, and the situation is now critical.

 

The summit will explore solutions from the government, including: 

 

  • Increase Local Housing Allowance rates for private rented accommodation 
  • Develop policy to stimulate retention and supply in the privately rented sector 
  • Review the housing benefit subsidy rate for local authority homelessness placements 
  • Give district councils the powers, funding, and resources needed to increase the supply of social housing
  • Increase the level of Discretionary Housing Payment and Homelessness Prevention Grant

 

The Minister for Local Government, Lee Rowley, has been invited to attend the summit.

 

Councillor Hannah Dalton, the District Councils’ Network spokesperson for health, housing and hardship, said:

 

Across the country, we are experiencing a spiralling tide of need, driven by a severe shortage of social housing, the cost of living crisis, and an unstable and unaffordable private rented sector. This means as district councils, we are placing an unprecedented number of people in temporary accommodation, which is cripplingly expensive for councils and unsuitable for residents. 

 

Districts are vital to preventing homelessness and providing resolution when our residents are faced with no alternative. Without urgent intervention, the very existence of this safety net is under threat.

 

We are therefore calling on the government to act now and urgently adopt our five asks ahead of the Autumn Statement. While these alone will not end homelessness, they will go a long way in reducing the number of families in temporary accommodation and the series of challenges that come with this.

 

The summit will take place remotely on Tuesday 31st October from 9.30am to 11am.

 

Any council leaders, housing portfolio holders or senior council officers wishing to attend the summit should email laura.walsh@lewes-eastbourne.gov.uk.

Friday 5 November 2021

Teen on her victory against Brent Council's 'inhumane' homeless housing policy: 'When I won my own case I wanted to keep on fighting for all those affected'

 
A fighter: Shadacia White

 

Six months ago LINK Wembley Matters wrote about a legal challenge to Brent Council's policy of not allowing homeless people on to the council housing list and thus unable to  bid for council housing. Shadacia White, the subject of the case, won her individual right to bid but wanted to pursue the case so that others in a similar situation would benefit.

At the time I asked Brent Council a key question:

I am planning to write about Osbornes' claim and ask that  you confirm that the Council accepts its policy is unlawful and that it intends to change the policy.

 I received no answer.

 In a blog LINK  Garden Court Chambers Housing Team take up the story:

A homeless teenager has forced a London Council to overturn its unlawful housing policy – helping more than 1,200 homeless individuals and families onto the council housing list.

Shadacia White, 18, was due to take Brent Council to the High Court on Wednesday (27 October) to stop Brent from unlawfully preventing homeless people from bidding for a council house.

But with the help of Tim Baldwin, of the Garden Court Chambers Housing Team, and housing litigation specialists at London law firm Osbornes Law, she had managed to make Brent change their policy and to put things right for those who had been affected, on the eve of the High Court hearing.

Figures from the council revealed that 1,233 homeless households who were previously deemed ineligible for council housing would have their applications for social housing updated from 29 October to allow them to finally bid for a home.

Shadacia, a university marketing student, previously won her own case to be placed on the council housing list but wanted to continue the fight to get Brent to change the policy for all homeless people.

Hundreds of homeless people in the borough have been prevented from bidding for housing for the past eight years, as they were deemed ‘no priority’.

Shadacia said:

We have finally achieved justice for the hundreds of homeless people in Brent who have been banned from bidding on the housing list despite being homeless and legal right to bid. Surely those who are homeless need a home the most, yet Brent has been illegally banning them from being placed on a housing list or placing them into the lowest priority ‘Band D’ so that they could not bid? When I won my own case I wanted to keep on fighting for all of those who are affected by this inhumane policy.

While I am pleased that Brent has finally changed its policy, it really shouldn’t have taken a homeless teenage student standing up against them to change it.

Shadacia White was originally told she would not even be considered for a house by Brent Council despite being homeless and living in temporary accommodation before she won her case and was placed on the housing list.

Shadacia, who currently lives in temporary accommodation with her mother, sister and autistic brother, has been ‘sofa surfing’ throughout her childhood. She says her childhood was hard as she rarely had a home.

She said:

The last few years have been a struggle and there were times when mum took us to Heathrow to sleep as we had nowhere else to go. Mum would just walk around all day in the cold. I went into school and told them what was happening and that I just wanted somewhere warm to stay and they got me a social worker and temporary accommodation.

Brent Council’s allocation scheme currently places applicants in priority bands D to A, where A is the highest priority. People in higher priority bands out-bid people in lower priority bands who express an interest in the same property on Brent’s housing register. People in band D are not allowed to bid at all.

Brent’s scheme currently says homeless applicants have ‘no priority’ and will be placed in band D, so that they can’t bid. The only exception to this is if Brent had accepted a ‘main housing duty’ towards a homelessness applicant. This requires the applicant to meet specific criteria that goes beyond being homeless, such as having a serious enough health condition.

The law says Brent has to give ‘reasonable preference’ to homeless people even if they are not owed the ‘main housing duty’, meaning that the current policy is unlawful.

Sam O’Flaherty, a specialist housing litigation solicitor at Osbornes Law, who represents Shadacia, said:

We are delighted that Brent has agreed to reverse its policy around placing homeless people on the housing list. It is unfortunate that we needed to issue proceedings to ensure that this happened and was done properly. As a result of Shadacia’s claim, not only have Brent agreed to change their policy by February 2022, but they have also agreed to a series of measures to ensure that homeless households do not continue to be deprived of their right to bid for social housing in the meantime, and for previously affected homeless households to be contacted and given an opportunity to join the Housing Register and bid if they are still eligible.

 Regrettably, I am not confident this would have been achieved without Shadacia having fought this all the way to the High Court. It is a testament to her that she has managed to achieve this and continued to fight even when she had won her own case.

Brent Council says that did not know about the issue with their policy until Shadacia’s solicitors wrote to them on 11 March, 2021 raising it.

The judicial review proceedings in the High Court have now been put on hold until 15 March next year to allow Brent to carry out its promised changes. Shadacia can restart proceedings before that date if Brent fail to do so.

 

Tuesday 25 May 2021

High rise blocks in Brent keep going up but so do the numbers of homeless families - zoom meeting May 27th

 


High-rise blocks keep going up but so do the numbers of homeless families.

About this event

  • What is happening to Brent’s housing supply?
  • Why are all the new housing developments making the housing crisis worse not better?
  • What can be done about it?
  • High-rise blocks keep going up but so do the numbers of homeless families
  • What is happening to Brent’s housing supply?
  • Why are all the new housing developments making the housing crisis worse not better?
  • What can be done about it?

Housing development in London is driven by frantic corporate and wealth investment activity.

In Brent, new high-rise blocks have been springing up but these are overwhelmingly private and often contain empty and under occupied flats.

Meanwhile, one in three Brent households live in expensive and often poor quality private rented housing, and more than 2,000 homeless families are stuck in temporary accommodation with no control over their future.

Why is it so hard for people to access Council homes which are decent, affordable and secure, a firm base to bring up families, work or study and realise aspirations in life?

Brent residents are among those who’ve been hardest hit by the pandemic. Now it’s time to put some meaning behind the phrase BUILD BACK BETTER by looking at the radical changes needed to ensure that everyone can access a decent home that they can afford.

FAIRER HOUSING – Partners for Change is working with ACTION ON EMPTY HOMES to bring about those changes. We want to see more resources for local Councils to build rented homes; we want private developers to build the right kind of homes; and we want empty homes to be put to good use.

  • Chair: Sahra Jama, Stream Skills Advancement
  • Speakers: Nimo Askar, L'Oreal Williams, Brent Residents
  • Councillor Margaret McLennan, Deputy Leader, Brent
  • Will McMahon, Director, Action of Empty Homes
  • Jacky Peacock, Advice for Renters

FREE TICKETS TO THIS EVENT HERE

Wednesday 28 April 2021

Will Brent Council amend housing Allocations Scheme to allow all homeless people to bid after intervention by law firm?

 From Osbournes Law LINK

For the last 8 years Brent Council has stopped the majority of homeless applicants from bidding for rehousing, treating them as ‘no priority’. Brent have now agreed to change this policy.

The Policy

Every council must have a published policy for how it allocates tenancies to those who apply for rehousing. Brent Council published its ‘Allocations Scheme’ for this in 2013 (with some amendments in November 2014 and June 2019). Brent’s Scheme places applicants in priority bands D to A, where A is the highest priority. People in higher priority bands will out-bid people in lower priority bands who express an interest in the same property on Brent’s housing register. Band D is the lowest and it is for those who Brent says have ‘no priority’. People in band D are not allowed to bid at all.

Brent’s Scheme says homeless applicants have ‘no priority’ and will be placed in band D, so that they cannot bid. The only exception to this is if Brent has accepted a ‘main housing duty’ towards a homelessness applicant, in which case they are placed in either band C or A.

What does the ‘main housing duty’ mean?

In order to have a ‘main housing duty’ accepted under homelessness law, you have to go through the long process of making a homelessness application to Brent. You also need to fulfil certain criteria. If Brent decides you do not have a ‘priority need’ (e.g. you do not have a dependent child or a serious health condition that makes you very vulnerable), or that you have made yourself ‘intentionally homeless’, then you would not qualify for a ‘main housing duty’. It takes at least 8 weeks for Brent to make a decision about whether they owe you a ‘main housing duty’, but often takes longer.

The ‘main housing duty’ basically means that Brent has to continue to provide you with temporary accommodation until you secure suitable long-term accommodation.

Why is the Policy unlawful?

The law gives the council a lot of freedom to choose the rules in its Allocations Scheme and how to prioritise different applicants. However, the law does require the council to give ‘reasonable preference’ to certain categories of people, including people who are homeless.

“Homeless” does not just mean living on the street. The legal definition includes anyone who:

  • Does not have accommodation they have a right to live in (e.g. by permission, by a tenancy, or by home ownership);
  • Cannot access their accommodation; or
  • Does not have accommodation that would be reasonable for them to continue to live in (e.g. because of domestic violence or if the property is in such a poor state to be uninhabitable).

The law says Brent has to give ‘reasonable preference’ to homeless people even if they are not owed the ‘main housing duty’. This means that Brent has been unlawfully denying homeless applicants who are waiting for a final decision on their homelessness applications, or who do not fulfil the criteria for a ‘main housing duty’, their right to bid for rehousing. What is most concerning is that this policy appears to have been in place for 8 years and is likely to have negatively affected hundreds if not thousands of homeless applicants over this time.

Brent’s agreement to change the Policy

Sam O’Flaherty at Osbornes wrote to Brent’s legal department on 11th March 2021 requiring them to change their scheme to allow all homeless people to bid and be given ‘reasonable preference’. We also asked Brent to ensure that our homeless client would be given reasonable preference, at least in band C, whilst Brent amended their scheme.

Brent’s legal team replied on 26th March 2021 as follows:

The Council has considered the Claimant’s exceptional circumstances, as outlined in the pre-action protocol letter of 11 March 2021 and has decided that it would be appropriate for the Claimant’s case to be referred to the Operational Director for him to exercise his discretionary powers under 12.22 of the allocation scheme to ensure that she is awarded reasonable preference in accordance with s.166A of the Housing Act 1996. Her case will be referred to him with the recommendation that she be awarded Band C from the date of her initial application on 17/02/2021.

In respect the request to review and amend the Allocation Scheme, the Council is already in the process of reviewing the scheme with a view to making amendments during the course of this year. It is not possible to set out the timescales at this stage, as finalising and publishing the scheme, will depend on consultation with stakeholders, an Equality Impact Assessment and Cabinet Approval of the changes.

In other words, Brent has effectively accepted that its scheme is unlawful and that it will be changed this year. In the meantime, if you are homeless and have been placed in band D by Brent, you should ask them to make a referral to the Operational Director to place you in band C until the scheme has been amended.

End of Osbournes article

NOTE: Wembley Matters contacted Brent Council and the Lead Member for Housing on Monday ahead of publication:
I am planning to write about Osbournes claim and ask that  you confirm that the Council accepts its policy is unlawful and that it intends to change the policy.

No response has been received.


Tuesday 15 September 2020

Thank you from 'chicken shop basement' blogger

Chicken Shop Basement Update

 
Following an update posted on Wembley Matters earlier I'd like to thank the readers and responders of Wembley Matters for their kind support and action.

I knew that it was an unfair and unsuitable offer but didn't know how to move past that.
 
I haven't yet heard from the Housing Department but will keep you updated on the outcome.
 
Whilst I'm delighted that the Council have apparently withdrawn the offer - ie not forced me to be intentionally homeless - it is us as Council Tax payers who are better served when the Council is held to account.
 
In the meantime I'm just so pleased that it's off their books and that no another family will be forced to live there - thank you again Martin for being an incredible and dynamic local resource.

Sunday 16 April 2017

Brent 'one of the worst councils for trying to force families out of London' report claims


Over the holiday weekend Brent Council has become the focus for attention over its housing policy. A report by Housing Action Southwark and Lambeth claims that Brent Council is one of the worst London boroughs in forcing families out of London:
  Not all London boroughs force homeless families into the private sector (for example Southwark and Islington), but out of the 23 that have in the last year, 75% have tried to force homeless families out of London. However, some are worse than others, with the Labour ran councils of Brent and Newham accounting for two-thirds of the out-of-London placements.

Brent council tried to move 112 families to the West Midlands last year alone, with 65 refusing and likely facing further homelessness. This is from a total of 139 out-of-London offers made by Brent council, meaning that 80% of the time that Brent council offer someone private rented accommodation out of London it is in the West Midlands. Very clearly Brent are not trying to find the nearest suitable accommodation to Brent as the Nzolomeso ruling requires LINK.

Nearly all of the households (95%) that Brent and Newham councils have tried to move out of London have children. These out of London placements will seriously disrupt their childhood and education. The councils will probably argue that families with children are the households that they struggle most to house in London due to the effects of the benefit cap. However, the case of the Telford placements (see below) shows that out-of-London placements are being used for families who not affected by the benefit cap. The fact that 29 other London boroughs can house homeless families without moving any, or many, families out of London shows that what Newham and Brent are doing is not necessary. Due to the massive difference in behaviour and use of private sector placements across London boroughs, the actions of Brent and Newham can therefore be seen as ideological.
The report gives a case study of Brent Council's moving of families to Telford in Shropshire:
As Brent were the worst council for trying to force families out of London we decided to look in detail at their use of out-of-London private sector discharges. We took the case study of the 11 households that Brent had tried to force to move to Telford, Shropshire. All 11 of these households had refused Brent councils offer, likely facing further homelessness as a result. According to the council none of these 11 families reviewed the decision to be moved to Telford or approached social services for help under the Children’s Act. This means the families would have had to have found accommodation themselves or stayed with friends or family.

FOIs revealed that all private sector discharges were to the same property that the council kept re-offering to household after household. This means that one house in Telford resulted in further homelessness for 11 families. No family viewed the property but it also appears from the notice given to these families explaining the offer and its consequences (see below) that no expenses were offered to view the property and they were only given 24 hours from receiving the letter to decide whether to accept the offer. All 11 families obviously decided the property was unsuitable, but Brent did not get the message. It is worrying that Brent kept offering this property, which very quickly they knew was going to be rejected. The later offers of this house in Telford are not done by a council who are trying to house homeless families, but rather one who is trying to end any responsibility they have towards homeless families as efficiently as possible.


The suitability assessments that Brent carried out for each family were also obtained through FOI (summary of the assessments is in the Appendix). The questionnaires asked basic facts such as the age of children, work details and medical needs. The assessments showed that across the 11 families there were 35 children, 29 who were school age. The offers therefore would have had serious disruption to many children’s lives. 9 of the 11 families also had parents in work. This means that the offers were potentially breaking the Homelessness (Suitability of Accommodation) Order 2012 which requires local authorities to consider the disruption caused by the location of accommodation to a household’s employment. It also means that most of the families would not have been subject to the benefit cap, meaning there would be far more available and affordable areas in which the council could place them, making the decision to place the families in Telford even more worrying.  

One possible reason why this Telford house was deemed so unsuitable by the families (even more so than offers to Birmingham, which more Brent families accepted and is a similar distance from London) is because it is a much less culturally diverse place. Our FOIs revealed that of the 8 families Brent council attempted to send to Telford which they had ethnicity data on, half were not white, and the 4 who were recorded as white were not necessarily white British (a County Court case here against Brent is by a Polishwoman for example). From the 2011 Census Telford is 90% white British compared to 53% for Birmingham and 18% for Brent.

Even though Brent Council said none of the 11 families reviewed the private sector discharge there was one court case reviewing the suitability of an offer in Telford by Brent council covered on the Nearly Legal blog. This means that either Brent Council were not accurate in their FOI response or that they were still making private sector offers to Telford after the time period for which the information they gave us covered. This court case shows how even though the person was actually trying to accept the Telford offer, Brent were clearly just using the offer to try and end a homeless duty to the family as they turned the parent’s temporary illness into a rejection of the offer.
 All this is happening while Brent Council is approving planning applications by Quintain for developments that are unaffordable for local people.

This is the full HASL report (Click bottom right for full size version):