Homelessness and Temporary Accommodation

Karen Buck Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered homelessness and temporary accommodation.

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak, and delighted, as well, that the debate has attracted support in the Chamber on an issue that is central to much of our work as Members of Parliament but not discussed as often as we would like. Although there is a great deal to cover under the topic of homelessness and temporary accommodation, I shall concentrate particularly on conditions, and I hope that colleagues will address some of the other important issues that come under its umbrella.

“I feel like I am being punished.”

Those were the words of a desperate mother accepted as homeless after experiencing domestic violence, and placed in temporary accommodation by my local authority, Westminster City Council, like tens of thousands of others. There were 98,300 households in temporary accommodation in June, including 127,240 children, and that was up by 14% in the last year alone. The mother was found a private flat by the council, somewhat misleadingly described as temporary, because she has stayed in that limbo for seven years already. That is not my personal record for temporary accommodation. The current record is 21 years, and 10 years is not at all unusual.

The properties that the mother in question and everyone like her have been placed in are expensive. Their rents are similar to full market-level private rents. In a particularly cruel twist, those high rents mean that a high percentage of homeless households are immediately caught by the benefit cap, even though the occupants had no choice about where they were placed, or the rents they would pay. They are also insecure, as the mother in question is. Families such as hers are forced to move constantly, not just within the local area but across the city and beyond, regardless of the schools that the children attend or their personal needs.

A heavily pregnant constituent, who was registered blind, was placed first in north London, in a property with multiple stairs, that was not self-contained and where she was at risk of falling, and then in east London, where she was expected to navigate totally unfamiliar surroundings. She said to me:

“I’m very frightened from places I’m unfamiliar with, as I can’t get around”.

A family with two blind young adult children attending college were told they simply had to learn new mobility routes, as they were sent to the other side of London. These are all recent cases. Someone else told me:

“We were living locally for 19 years, and working in the hospital. We were evicted from our flat and had to approach Westminster council for help. We were placed in an emergency self contained flat that we were told was just for six weeks, so we couldn’t change our daughter’s school. But unfortunately its lapsed to 7 months. The transport is too expensive from West London just to take my daughter to the school. The cost is £60 weekly which we can’t afford any more—and the journey is too long—my wife has to leave home at 6AM to reach the school at 9AM. She find it very hard with little girl who is just 28 months old.”

The stories of dislocation and of the crisis of affordability could fill this debate alone, but I want to concentrate on the condition of the properties that my constituents are placed in. Those conditions are beyond belief, particularly given the amount of public money that is going into supporting the almost entirely private landlords providing the accommodation.

The family commuting five hours a day to school also reported:

“The condition of the flat is very bad & cold we are on the top of the building, & all is glass, with damp everywhere, the water leaking through the glass all around us”.

The same mother I referred to at the beginning of the speech, who was homeless owing to domestic violence, contacted me a few weeks ago to say:

“The property we are in is a shambles with mice, rats and rising damp and mould throughout. The Council has contacted the housing association managing the property, who has contacted the landlord. She sent her surveyor to the property in August. He was shocked to see how much damp we have. He said it would need major work done. I have postnatal depression and suffer from an illness which means I get migraines with stroke-type symptoms with them. I am on medication. My eldest son also has asthma and rising damp is in the kids room. The damp in my room is so bad myself and the baby are now sleeping on the floor in the front room and the new born is having problems breathing”.

Another mother wrote to me—all these examples are from this year, in the time of covid:

“I am in shock that the council can give properties to people in the state I was given mine especially with a six week old baby. I was told last minute after just giving birth that the temporary emergency accommodation I was in needed to be vacated. I was given a flat on the other side of London despite explaining all my support system was locally which is important to me as someone who suffers depression and anxiety with a history of attempted suicide which has gotten worse since I’ve been moved so far already.

Now I’m sitting in the living room on the first night nursing my new born when suddenly there is leaking from the ceiling and water is falling fast. The next day a contractor comes and tells me this is a previous issue that wasn’t fixed by Westminster and if he hadn’t come today the ceiling would have collapsed on me! He had to cut two big holes in the ceiling to dry out the ceiling as a water pipe had been leaking for some time before I moved in. Now the ceiling in the kitchen is leaking with water falling through the smoke alarm”.

There are more, oh so many more:

“Dear Ms Buck. I live in a Westminster temporary council flat, one of my 3 children is autistic. My neighbour down stairs shouts and kicks my door because of the leaking water in her flat which we reported to the agency A2Dominion”—

the housing association responsible for managing the property—

“and no one fixed. My kids are scared—especially the autistic child—they can’t sleep and so are doing no good in school”.

Another constituent came to me after being referred through the council’s children’s services. Even then—although Westminster council has now responded to this and one or two of the other cases—the council took 10 months to resolve the problem, despite being told:

“The mould is so severe because it was left for a very long time untreated…I can send you a copy of the EH”

environmental health—

“report and at least 40 pictures to outline the severity of mould and dampness and how it ate the plastering off the walls. This mould releases spores into the air which makes everybody inside this place always in hayfever condition. We have to keep all windows open for at least 5 hours every day. You could imagine the cost of heating…as we have a little boy who is autistic and had a very serious breathing condition and needs medical attention if he gets a simple cold. It is not only my son getting constantly ill but our food is mouldy and the clothes inside the cupboards are mouldy too.”

Another constituent wrote:

“Although we are on the waiting list for many years now, A2Dominion has not kept up its maintenance of this property. We have mould in all the rooms, carpets and furniture. The floor is a hazard as initially it did not even have underlay. Due to the wear and tear of 15 years we were advised to remove it and now we are without carpet. Winter is settling in and we will be cold. In the last few weeks, we have had to kill 6 mice. There are holes in floorboards and walls where they come in”.

Another said:

“I am in a temporary accommodation…by Westminster council placed in Leyton. I have written to my landlord to tell them that repairs are needed for three years now. I have allowed a reasonable time for my landlord to do these repairs, but they have not done them. I reported these problems to my landlord: Mould everywhere, walls are wet and the flooring wet everywhere. My son now has respiratory problems and hard breathing due to the property state, and is now under the hospital for his respiratory infection…it’s getting worse day by day. The house is all mould and suffocating for me and child—it’s life threatening to me and my son. I have contacted the housing at Westminster, the receptionist keeps telling me she will send an urgent email and someone will call me back but not a single person is. Ceiling has fallen down on me and my 3 years old in the bathroom…The agency came to try to cover it up and the man working for the agency when he opened the ceiling roof said this is life-threatening and it needs to get repaired but the landlord refusing to pay a lot of money as it costs too much.”

Another wrote to me:

“I am writing to inform you of my revolting state of living in this temporary accommodation of mine and the neglect of A2Dominion. I am a mother of two autistic children under the age of 10. Both suffer from severe disabilities…My temporary accommodation has horrid dampness…which has affected our cardiovascular medical condition and has made my children and I suffer tremendously during the past one year and a half ever since we moved into here. The carpets are damp to the point where you cannot keep your feet on the ground for too long while sitting. In addition to rats and mice that were roaming through the flat freely my electric meter caused a huge fire in the building which was luckily put out...Due to this, I have been without electricity for almost a week now.

I have spent the last 6 days in the most difficult state. I have not had any help or support from A2Dominion nor the council. Both are throwing the responsibility on another, while I am staying in a home everyday in order to keep my kids warm and fed in this cold winter. We are literally homeless right now and nothing has been done to fix the electricity and replace the meter, regardless of the hundreds of calls and pleas for help that I have made. I have no option but to turn to you for help. I am desperate and exhausted. My children are struggling and suffering with me. Their medical conditions are a huge obstacle, as they unable to accept change.”

And another:

“I’m writing this email in the hopes you could help me…I’m currently in long term temporary accommodation in Newham with my 4 month old baby…I’m from Westminster and have been accepted by the council. I’m currently in an unsuitable accommodation which…is infested with mice and vermin. I moved in in March this year and by the third day I reported the infestation of mice and large holes in the bathroom, kitchen and living room. Due to covid-19 the landlord refused to fill out any holes forcing me to do it myself very unprofessionally and desperately whilst heavily pregnant. When Lockdown came to an end the landlord did send out two different men…to fill the holes, and they did nothing…I pressured the housing to help force the landlord to fill the holes and it was a back and forth for a couple of weeks resulting in the maintenance team saying ‘the house is 200 years old…there’s nothing more I can do’ and ‘The kitchen flooring has water damage causing wood decay along the whole flooring for the kitchen which brings in rodents from the basement’…now as there’s holes everywhere and I even hear them eat through some holes and they come in…some eat the poison and die in my house…I’m stranded alone dealing with this, and it’s worsening my postpartum depression and anxiety. I can’t stay in this house another week. Due to lockdown new restriction of staying in other households I am really fighting my depression as I can’t even sofa surf due to safety issues. Please, please help us.”

And the last:

“In 2018 my family had been placed by Westminster in our current flat which has been deemed unfit to live in and determined to be detrimental to our health on a number of occasions during our stay (there is black mould/fungus/bacteria covering our walls). In addition to this, due to the building being quite literally bent out of shape, and slowly collapsing in on us, the windows in the living room are unable to close…making the entire house very cold, especially as we approach winter times. We have lived in these deteriorating conditions for…2 and a half years now despite it being considered urgent by every inspector that came to inspect the building saying that we should be rehoused immediately”.

I have managed to get two or three of these cases resolved in the last week. These are a selection, and I could have doubled, tripled or quadrupled the examples of the conditions that people are being kept in. The harshness of the conditions that people are experiencing as they go through the homeless system has to be seen to be believed. I do not understand how local authorities let this happen. I do not understand how the housing associations that are intermediaries—A2Dominion, Genesis, and Stadium housing associations among the worst, in my own experience; others will have other examples—allow this to happen. I do not understand how the Government allow it to happen, given the amount of public money that is being put into this.

The pressure of numbers is taking its toll. The figures are creeping up every year, year on year since 2011. Local councils are unequipped to cope with and pay for the homes that are required. Two thirds of all households that are homeless in Britain—62,670 households—were placed in temporary accommodation by London local authorities. Even prior to covid-19, London boroughs’ expenditure on homelessness was expected to rise to a total of £1 billion by 2021-22. Nearly a quarter of this is unfunded by central Government, thereby increasing the pressure on other services. There is no doubt that the pressure of those figures means that the ability to manage the quality of the accommodation is undermined, and the Government are failing to make good on the requirement to support these services. Unless the Government act on this, the brutal experiences being endured by my constituents will only continue to worsen.

Research from Shelter earlier this year revealed the explosion of the temporary accommodation industry. Between April 2018 and March 2019, councils spent over £1 billion on temporary accommodation—a rise of 9% in a year, and 78% in five years. Shelter’s research shows that 86% of this money is flowing directly to private providers, most of whom are unregulated. This explosion in expenditure has been fuelled by a chronic lack of investment in decent, genuinely affordable social housing.

The Minister will, I fear, just tell us how much the Government are spending. That is utterly meaningless unless there is a recognition of how far short funding falls, compared with what is needed, and of the wider context of cuts to social security, local housing allowance, local councils and social house building. I hope that I will be disappointed and that that is not what the Minister will say.

We need fundamental changes to housing supply and housing support in the social security system. We need proper management of and accountability for the homes that vulnerable and homeless people get stranded in. We need to strengthen the welfare safety net, remove the benefit cap, reverse the freeze to local housing allowance and ensure that rents align with the 50th percentile of market rents. We need urgent legislation to give private renters more security and end no-fault evictions, which remain one of the leading causes of homelessness. We need to invest in a new generation of social housing to provide families with stable, permanent and affordable homes.

Local councils need their homelessness costs to be fully funded. Homeless households need to be accommodated locally, except in exceptional circumstances, and the routine use of out-of-borough housing must be ended. Ministers have previously assured us that that will happen. They have promised us that it should be the exception rather than the rule, but that commitment is honoured only in the breach. Capacity and resources need to be made available to ensure that standards of accommodation are acceptable.

Homelessness is always a hellish experience, and the people who endure it are almost by definition already highly vulnerable. It should not be a punishment, but my constituents ask me this question again and again: “Why am I being punished for the sin of being homeless?”

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

I am afraid that there are a lot of people trying to take part, so if you want me to get you all in, we will have to limit you to three minutes. I am sorry.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Kelly Tolhurst)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I congratulate the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) on securing the debate on this important issue, which everybody has been pleased and willing to speak about with passion. She has spoken passionately about this topic before, including when we spoke last week about another element in this sphere. I am really grateful to all right hon. and hon. Members who have taken the time to attend and to speak on behalf of their constituents. I welcome the opportunity to address their points.

May I start by saying that I, too, am an MP who has worked hard for my constituents? I was very pleased to take on the role as Minister for homelessness, because of my involvement prior to being elected as a Member of Parliament. What I am hearing today is support for a lot of the work that the Government are doing, and a willingness and commitment in terms of the Government continuing to work to reach our objectives.

It is unacceptable that anyone should have to sleep rough. I recognise the incredible achievements in the last eight months by local councils and the homelessness sector—supported by this Government—meaning that in September we had successfully supported more than 29,000 vulnerable people during the pandemic, nearly 19,000 of whom have been provided with settled accommodation or move-on support.

I respect the hon. Member for Westminster North greatly, but I will have to disappoint her. I will outline further the funding that this Government have put into rough sleeping and homelessness. Although we say that this is not just about money, it is also about providing available funding and about what happens on the ground. We cannot ignore the unprecedented action that this Government have taken over recent months.

Our work on rough sleeping is not only world-leading, but has protected hundreds—

[Ms Buck]

Before the Minister moves off that point, will she explain exactly why, if the Government are spending more money, homelessness has risen by 14% in the last year alone?

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. We have spent an unprecedented amount of money, and we are continuing to invest in those pilots and schemes in order to tackle all parts of rough sleeping and homelessness. There is a distinction between what we have done with Everybody In and what we are doing with Housing First, with regard to our social housing pilots. We are talking about a vast landscape. We are committed to solving rough sleeping and dealing with homelessness. The funding from the Government is an incredibly important part of that, and so are the right interventions on the ground, delivered in the correct way. That is something that I have particularly focused on since I have been in this role.

The spending review demonstrates the Government’s commitment to build on the fantastic progress of Everyone In and to support rough sleepers and those at risk of homelessness during covid-19. Next year, we are going even further and will provide more than £750 million to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping. That includes the additional funding to support frontline services through the rough sleeping initiative and to enable local councils to fund their statutory duties to prevent homelessness. We are also providing capital funding to continue our landmark drive to bring forward thousands of homes for rough sleepers. That will support our commitment to end rough sleeping in this Parliament and fully enforce the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017.

On temporary accommodation, I am absolutely clear that we always want to see homeless individuals and families moved into settled accommodation as soon as possible and permanently. The action we are taking to increase the delivery of social housing will support that. I also recognise the important role that temporary accommodation can play in the meantime in ensuring that no family is ever without a roof over their head. Although the overall numbers of households in temporary accommodation have been rising, the number of households with children has remained relatively stable since the introduction of the Homelessness Reduction Act. However, I accept that we must go further. The increase in temporary accommodation numbers since the Act took effect has been almost entirely driven by single households receiving help that was previously unavailable to them. More recently, the increase has also been driven by our action to accommodate rough sleepers during the pandemic.

The Homelessness Reduction Act requires for the first time that local authorities, public services and the third sector work together actively to prevent and relieve homelessness for people at risk, irrespective of whether they are a family or a single person. That means that more single people are getting the help they need. They might otherwise have been on the streets. Since the introduction of the Act, 270,000 households have had their homelessness successfully prevented or relieved through securing accommodation for more than six months.

The hon. Member for Westminster North rightly raised the issue of the quality of temporary accommodation. In 2019, we gave £6.7 million to more than 180 local authorities to boost their enforcement in relation to quality on the ground.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Buck]

We could have had a whole day of debate on this important and wide-ranging subject. We heard a number of superb speeches. I hope that we will return to this because a number of questions remain to be answered by the Minister. The cold, brutal and inescapable fact is that we are going backwards. We are going backwards on homelessness. It has risen by 14% in a year and by half in a decade. Rough sleeping has doubled in a decade.

Everyone In showed that the rough sleeping problem can be tackled. It ended and we now have people back on the streets. Local councils should not place people out of borough, but they are. What is the Minister going to do about it? Two thirds of my homeless households are placed out of borough. Local authorities should not be placing them in temporary accommodation in the conditions that we heard about in my examples and others, but they are. We have a proposal to do something about it. Will the Minister take that up?

The Government can talk about how much they have spent. They have cut housing support, social housing, assistance for renters, and the local housing allowance. They cut the social security budget by £9 billion in 2015 alone. That is why we are in the state we are in and why 1.1 million people are on council housing waiting lists. We have not heard answers; we have just what is being done. It is clearly failing.

Can we meet the Minister? Can we return to this issue and take forward the Opposition’s positive proposals to find a way to help our desperate homeless constituents?

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered homelessness and temporary accommodation.