Minutes:
The Housing Needs Lead Officer for Teignbridge gave a presentation on the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 which came into effect on the 3 April.
The new Act introduced a number of new measures
· More emphasis on homelessness prevention with new legal duties on local authorities to provide meaningful support to everyone who is homeless or at risk of homelessness, regardless of whether they are in priority need or ‘intentionally homeless’, as long as they are eligible for assistance.
· a new suite of assessments and a new pathway which will require the service to adapt its processes and procedures as well as adopt new templates of work.
· The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 doubles the number of days from 28 to 56. Anyone accepted by the Council as being threatened with homelessness will be owed the new prevention duty and the Council would need to take ‘reasonable steps’ to help them avoid becoming homeless.
· local authorities must ensure advice and information around homelessness and preventing homelessness is available free of charge to everyone in their district.
· The new act will require a more robust approach to advisory services with the need to provide information and advice on:
· The Homelessness Reduction Act also stipulates that the support offered to eligible applicants is to be more robust than currently required. Once a local authority is satisfied that someone is homeless or threatened with homelessness and eligible for assistance a defined assessment should be carried out.
· An applicant’s assessment and plan must be kept under review and updated as necessary, until the local authority has determined that no further duty is owed.
Under the new Act, the Council will have a duty to help alleligible homeless applicants to secure accommodation for a period of at least 6 months, regardless of whether they are in priority need or ‘intentionally homeless’.
The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 gives applicants the right to request a review of any decision made by the local authority (in addition to those laid down in current legislation)
A new 'public Authority Duty to Refer will be introduced in October 2018 and under this duty, “specified public authorities” e.g. other statutory services such as prisons, social services departments etc., will be required to refer details of people who they consider being homeless or threatened with homelessness to their local authority (if the person agrees to the notification being made). The Council will then need to make contact with this individual for assessment.
the DCLG predicts that homelessness prevention caseloads will increase by approximately 25%.
The DCLG has also estimated a projected increase of 50% for review requests in line with the new duties and a rise in service administration costs of 2% per year.
Implementation Plan
We have devised a bespoke Implementation plan in collaboration with Exeter City Council in order to prepare the ground for the new Act.
Teignbridge will benefit from an increase in central government grant funding through two new grants called New Burdens funding, and The Flexible Homelessness Support Grant.
These provide a funding increase of 42% over the next two years which will enable the enhancement of staffing resources and the development of private rented sector offers to meet the new duties.