Agenda item

7.1

The Executive Director, Communities, submitted a report containing details of key performance issues regarding homelessness in the City.

7.2

Jan Sutton, Housing Solutions Manager, introduced the report and referred to bed and breakfast and temporary accommodation use, homelessness preventions, projected increases in the number of homeless over the next few years and details of the key challenges facing the Council in respect of homelessness.

7.3

Members of the Committee raised questions and the following responses were provided:-

·               An Officer Working Group had been established specifically to work with private landlords, with the aim of discussing levels of rent and negotiating, where possible, reduction in rents, particularly for larger families where there was no suitable Council accommodation available.

·               Officers would look at the criteria with regard to the possibility of obtaining Government funding to undertake refurbishment works required to bring vacant properties back to such a condition so as to be able to house homeless people.

·               It is unlikely that the target of zero households in bed and breakfast accommodation will be achieved unless the Supported Accommodation Pathway can be implemented.  The Pathway has not been implemented because the required funding of £300,000 for the necessary ICT was not approved.  Alternative funding was being considered through the Capital Programme.

·               A certain proportion of beds were held at St Ann’s Hostel for Housing Solutions customers, which meant that they would not have to go into bed and breakfast.  Assistance and support was provided in order to make sure homeless or vulnerable people gained the necessary ability and skills to enable them to live on their own in a Council tenancy.

·               Partners were still taking a role in ensuring that they took their fair share of presentations in terms of homeless and/or vulnerable people who required accommodation.

·               There was a very strict protocol in respect of the standard of accommodation offered by bed and breakfast providers.  There were only four bed and breakfast providers that the Council used on a regular basis and all these properties were checked regularly in terms of standards of cleanliness.

7.4

RESOLVED: That the Committee:-

(a)     notes the contents of the report now submitted, together with the responses provided to the questions raised; and

(b)     requests that (i) a further report on homelessness performance be submitted to a meeting of the Committee in six month’s time and (ii) the report be referred to the Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee, (A) with a request that Members look at the possibility of implementing cross-cutting measures to deal with the problems of homelessness in the City and (B) highlighting the fact that the Homelessness Service was operating under pressure and requesting that such pressures could be alleviated where possible.