Friday, October 27, 2017
Wales' growing homelessness crisis
There are some disturbing statistics regarding Wales' growing homelessness crisis on the BBC website. They tell us that there has been a 29% increase in those people presenting themselves as being threatened with homelessness. That is a significant increase in one year alone. New obligations on Council to prevent homelessness have made some difference but Councils are now finding themselves being swamped by factors outside their control:
Shelter Cymru said there had been an 8.5% drop in the use of temporary accommodation and 45% drop in the use of bed and breakfasts in the year after the new housing legislation took effect in April 2015.
"However, what we've seen since then is numbers of households in temporary accommodation creeping back up, which is a trend very much linked to the rising demand on homelessness services," a spokeswoman added.
It pointed to rising levels of poverty, a lack of affordable housing options, welfare reform, and lack of funding for essential services to prevent homelessness.
The latest Welsh Government figures show 9,210 households in 2016-17 were threatened with homelessness within 56 days - up from 7,128 the year before.
At the end of June 2017, there were 1,980 households in temporary accommodation, with 207 of those in bed and breakfasts, including 27 families with children.
And now Crisis are predicting that homelessness in Wales could rise by a third in the next year. The extra money being put into this by the Welsh Government is welcome and could assist councils to cope with the growing pressure they are under to deal with this problem.
But the two big factors behind this growing homelessness trend will be much harder to sort out. Welfare reform is a major cause and the roll-out of universal credit will make things worse. The UK Government need to perform some drastic u-turns on the way they are implementing this benefit.
The other issue is the shortage of affordable housing. The Welsh Government are committed to 20,000 more affordable homes by 2021. The question is will that be enough and can the programme be accelerated? If not then the use of temporary accommodation will grow and that is not a good thing.
Shelter Cymru said there had been an 8.5% drop in the use of temporary accommodation and 45% drop in the use of bed and breakfasts in the year after the new housing legislation took effect in April 2015.
"However, what we've seen since then is numbers of households in temporary accommodation creeping back up, which is a trend very much linked to the rising demand on homelessness services," a spokeswoman added.
It pointed to rising levels of poverty, a lack of affordable housing options, welfare reform, and lack of funding for essential services to prevent homelessness.
The latest Welsh Government figures show 9,210 households in 2016-17 were threatened with homelessness within 56 days - up from 7,128 the year before.
At the end of June 2017, there were 1,980 households in temporary accommodation, with 207 of those in bed and breakfasts, including 27 families with children.
And now Crisis are predicting that homelessness in Wales could rise by a third in the next year. The extra money being put into this by the Welsh Government is welcome and could assist councils to cope with the growing pressure they are under to deal with this problem.
But the two big factors behind this growing homelessness trend will be much harder to sort out. Welfare reform is a major cause and the roll-out of universal credit will make things worse. The UK Government need to perform some drastic u-turns on the way they are implementing this benefit.
The other issue is the shortage of affordable housing. The Welsh Government are committed to 20,000 more affordable homes by 2021. The question is will that be enough and can the programme be accelerated? If not then the use of temporary accommodation will grow and that is not a good thing.
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Homelessness is horrible, and the poor state of the housing market affects every family. For example, I have a daughter who owns a house that is too small for her growing family, but seems to have no chance of grading up. One son is in rented accommodation with no hope of buying. He has had to move on several occasions when the landlord's plans changed and the house was sold, or the landlord was just so bad that life in that house became intolerable.
I get excited when I see new houses being built, but all too often they are too expensive for first time buyers, and to add to the problems they are too far from employers or schools for those struggling to buy their first house and pay to commute to work. Even when they are near schools there appear to be no plans to accommodate the extra children from the new estate.Lack of public green space, or community halls on new estates show that within a decade these estates may suffer from bored teenagers with nothing to do, an nowhere to go.
We tried to solve our family's problems by planning a retirement bungalow on our own land, so that our son could move into the farmhouse, but were not allowed to to as that would not suit the development plan , or provide full time employment. We then tried to convert an existing building, but were asked to contribute £70,000 to the affordable housing fund!! If we had that much money spare we would have given it to our son to buy a house anyway.
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I get excited when I see new houses being built, but all too often they are too expensive for first time buyers, and to add to the problems they are too far from employers or schools for those struggling to buy their first house and pay to commute to work. Even when they are near schools there appear to be no plans to accommodate the extra children from the new estate.Lack of public green space, or community halls on new estates show that within a decade these estates may suffer from bored teenagers with nothing to do, an nowhere to go.
We tried to solve our family's problems by planning a retirement bungalow on our own land, so that our son could move into the farmhouse, but were not allowed to to as that would not suit the development plan , or provide full time employment. We then tried to convert an existing building, but were asked to contribute £70,000 to the affordable housing fund!! If we had that much money spare we would have given it to our son to buy a house anyway.
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