Please note you can also sign up to hear more about the Rough Sleeping Programme in a special Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) webinar on Tuesday 13 October. And you can share your concerns or insights from your local area at our Policy team's online drop in session Monday 05 October.
On Tuesday 22nd September Homeless Link supported a webinar by Minister for Homelessness Florence Eshalomi, which gave the homelessness sector an opportunity to meet the Minister and hear her answer some of your questions.
The Minister’s opening speech touched on her own experiences of homelessness while living in temporary accommodation during her childhood, and she emphasised the importance for her of tackling the impact of homelessness on children and young people. She described her excitement about taking on the challenges and opportunities of the homelessness brief, and her desire to meet service providers and see good practice up and down the country.
Rough Sleeping Programme
In regard to the purpose of the new Rough Sleeping Programme (RSP) and the Prime Minister’s commitment to ‘offer everyone a route off the streets by Christmas’, she stated: “A route off the streets should be an appropriate offer of accommodation and support based on people’s individual circumstances”. She mentioned that prevention is a central aim for the programme, and that she is working with colleagues in other departments to encourage collaboration on this. The Minister also highlighted the importance of access to support as a central part of the RSP, and that the programme is aiming to take a long-term approach.
No Recourse to Public Funds
The minister's speech was followed by a Q&A section, with MHCLG Deputy Director Catherine Bennion reading out or summarising questions which had been submitted on particular themes.
In response to a question on the RSP’s guidance for how local authorities and services should support migrants with No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF), Minister Eshalomi suggested that local authorities should assess individual circumstances on a case-by-case basis and refer people to appropriate services, including working with the Home Office to understand people’s rights and entitlements. However, the Minister also noted that in some cases the local authority will have to continue to provide emergency shelter and support. She mentioned that she and the Secretary of State (Angela Rayner) will continue to look at this issue and discuss it with colleagues in the Home Office.
Homeless Link continues to advocate to civil servants and ministers that the Government should provide stronger guidance to local authorities on accommodating people with NRPF as part of the Rough Sleeping Programme. We cannot end rough sleeping or homelessness more widely without providing migrants with accommodation and support. We are also working closely with colleagues across the sector to emphasise this in joint messaging.
National housing first philosophy
In response to a question on what steps are being taken to understand and embed a ‘national housing first philosophy’ across the country, the Minister emphasised that she supports the Housing First model and is working with colleagues on exploring how the principles of this model could be embedded nationally. Homeless Link will be sharing our work on Housing First with the Minister, including our More Than a Roof report on the wide-ranging positive outcomes of Housing First and the cost savings it leads to. We are also advocating to embed key principles of the Housing First model across the wider homelessness system including through increasing long-term housing options for people at the earliest opportunity alongside holistic, open-ended support for those who need it.
A route off the street by Christmas
One question touched on how the Minister is leading on ensuring that ‘offering a route off the streets for everyone by Christmas’ really means everyone. The Minister described her work with different local authorities, combined authorities, mayoral strategic authorities, charities and other organisations that are delivering the RSP on the ground. She noted however that she is mindful to avoid dictating from Whitehall that services have to be delivered in a particular way, and that local knowledge of what is needed in each local area will be most effective to help people out of homelessness.
Homeless Link is communicating with our members and engaging with the Government and local authorities to emphasise that self-contained accommodation should be the goal wherever possible, and a focus on longer-term solutions for every individual. Where communal accommodation is necessary, there should be a focus on making sure environments are as psychologically informed as possible, providing trauma-informed support work, and prioritising safety and safeguarding. This recent blog from our CEO Rick Henderson highlights some of these concerns and links to a range of guidance and resources on these topics.
Local Housing Allowance rates
Another question asked whether the Government will review Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates, as temporary accommodation costs will continue to increase if they don’t. The Minister mentioned that she has spoken about LHA rates as an issue for many years now, and that the Government is looking at a range of measures to tackle affordability including the measures in the Renters’ Rights Act, building more social homes, and reforming the social security system in a way that is ‘sustainable’ and ‘brings people along with us’. She stated that “It’s an area that I will continue to personally make representations to colleagues in DWP and Treasury on, asking for us to review this again when the time is right.” Homeless Link raised the issue of frozen LHA rates in our recent representation to the Autumn Budget, and we are collaborating with colleagues across the sector to campaign on this issue.
Join the follow up webinar: Hear more about the Rough Sleeping Programme
The call concluded with Catherine Bennion emphasising that the Department is keen to continue hearing from and engaging with voluntary services in the delivery of the RSP. To this end, Homeless Link is facilitating another webinar on Tuesday 13th October, 3-4pm, to enable homelessness services to hear more details about the RSP from MHCLG civil servants.
Tell us what is happening in your area
The policy team is also working to gather information from our members about what’s currently happening on the ground in your areas in regard to the implementation of the RSP. Please come along to our policy drop-in on Monday 5th October, which will be recurring every three weeks on a Monday at 11am, to tell us what’s happening (or not happening) in your area. We will aim to share an anonymised summary of this information with the Government in the hopes of influencing the implementation of the RSP to make it as successful as possible, while also advocating for the needs of homelessness services.
