Agenda item

[Report of the Director for Housing &Growth . To be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Housing and Estate Renewal.]

To carry out the conversion of the now vacant Adult Day Care Centre and Kurdish Community Centre at Birkbeck Lodge into temporary accommodation units.

The Cabinet Member for Housing and Estate Renewal introduced the report, which sought approval for the Council to carry out the conversion of the now vacant Adult Day Care Centre and Kurdish Community Centre at Birkbeck Lodge into emergency accommodation units.

In introducing the report, the Cabinet Member highlighted the following issues:

·         The Council had a duty to house homeless families where they found themselves in situations where they required emergency accommodation.

·         Emergency accommodation was the most expensive form of temporary accommodation provided by the Council and often-involved expensive nightly rates being paid by the Council.

·         Historically, there had been a heavy reliance on use of B&B accommodation, which was often of poor quality.

·         The Council was seeking to provide all emergency accommodation within the borough in-house. There already existed two converted properties for use as emergency accommodation (Broadwater lodge, Whitehall lodge).

·         This would be the third conversion of premises to provide emergency accommodation to families in the borough and an important new design feature was that all bedrooms would have an en -suite bathroom. There would be no shared bathroom facilities at the premises. All forms of future emergency accommodation would take into account this new requirement. There would still be communal areas, such as the kitchens to allow as many units of accommodation as possible.

• Homeless families should only be in emergency accommodation for up to 12 weeks but the Cabinet Member recognised in certain circumstances, this was longer. This period allowed the Council to assess whether it had an obligation to provide housing duty for them.
• A lot of emergency accommodation providers were not to a high standard and could continue in this low quality model due a demand in their services.

The Cabinet Member closed her introduction by stating the impact on children who found themselves in emergency accommodation could be immensely damaging and Cabinet should do all it can to improve the quality of emergency accommodation.

Following questions from Cllr Brabazon, Cllr Hearn, Cllr Mark Blake and Cllr Cawley-Harrison, it was noted that:

• There would be a member of staff on site 24/7. This was important as homeless families might be vulnerable and support was necessary.

• The purpose of the report was for a decision to be made to approve the capital investment required for work on the conversion of Birkbeck Lodge into emergency accommodation, not to release the revenue budget for managing it. The running cost budget would be met from the housing benefit income of families at the emergency accommodation and, because of the 24/7 support, extra cover to the costs might be provided from some of the larger lodges that have a better economy of scale. Savings on emergency accommodation were highlighted at point 8.4 of the report.
• Regarding accessibility, all rooms were on the ground floor and would be step free and wheelchair accessible.
• The creation of Birkbeck Lodge will increase the Haringey’s capacity to keep households within the borough during the critical first few weeks.
• It was considered appropriate to start looking across the portfolio of properties owned by the Council to see where other premises could be converted into emergency accommodation and, if possible, for those to be fully self-contained. This was explored with Birkbeck Lodge; however, given the lack of emergency accommodation available at the time, this was not in the final plan, as it would have reduced the number of rooms available to homeless families.
• The 24/7 provision of staffing at Birkbeck Lodge would not change despite the available provision of CCTV, detailed in the report. Security of the premise was paramount and it was important to provide staffing and surveillance, especially where families were sharing communal areas.
• The accommodation would be appropriate for families, as far as possible. Rooms were of different sizes, with a different number of beds, and certain rooms could be joined to accommodate bigger families if necessary. As the portfolio of the Council’s emergency accommodation premises grows, it would be able to better suit accommodation to homeless family’s needs. It was the Council’s intention to house families in the most suitable accommodation, where possible.
• There was no intention to add sprinklers to the premise as this was not a requirement by set regulations, and there could be a risk that they may do more harm than good given that these emergency rooms would be on the ground floor. However, the Homes for Haringey Managing Director  would seek advice from the Fire Brigade and other authorities on this matter and write back to Cllr Cawley- Harrison.

RESOLVED

1. To approve the conversion of the ground floor of 2-152 Birkbeck Road into temporary accommodation.

2. To approve the Agreed Maximum Price (AMP) submitted by Engie Limited (Engie) (formally Keepmoat Ltd) for the Birkbeck Lodge Temporary Accommodation Conversion Works.

3. To approve the total professional fees of £62,951, which represents 6.42% of the contract sum.
4. To note the total project costs of £1,043,495.

5. To authorise Haringey’s Legal Department to issue a letter of intent for the amount of up to and not exceeding £98,054 being 10% of the contract sum under the Council’s Contract Standing Orders (CSO) 9.07.3 allowing the planned work to start on site as soon as possible.

Reasons for decision

The Council uses emergency accommodation such as the type proposed at Birkbeck Lodge to house households who approach the Council as homeless, whilst Homes for Haringey continue to work with the household to explore their housing options. These additional bed spaces will reduce the need to procure expensive and dispersed short-term housing to accommodate households while their applications are being assessed.

The reasons for recommendations 3.2 and 3.5 is to enable the project to commence by issuing the letter of intent and, pending conclusion of the formal contract, the award of the contract to Engie.

Alternative options considered

The option of doing nothing was rejected as this would leave the space unused and risks squatting and/or falling into long-term disrepair.

The option of converting this space into permanent Council housing was considered, but there is a pressing need for more emergency accommodation in-borough for households who approach the Council as homeless. The proposed conversion would not prevent the Council from converting the space it permanent Council housing in the future.