Agenda item

To provide an update on the response of the Council and key partners to homelessness during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Robbie Erbmann, Assistant Director for Housing, introduced a report about the Council’s approach to rough sleeping since March 2020. Due to concerns about the significant risk that rough sleepers could be at as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) made a request to local authorities to accommodate anyone who was, or who was at risk of, rough sleeping. This became known as the “Everybody In” directive and the Council had worked with Homes for Haringey (HfH) and partners across the Borough to deliver this. Since March 2020 the Council had provided accommodation for over 700 individuals, only around 50 of which would have been considered to be in priority need. This peaked at around 400 people at any one time. As well as providing accommodation, the Council also provided wrap-around support services and so this had provided an opportunity to get people who had been rough sleeping for a long time into support programmes. About 400 of the people that had been accommodated had now found a long-term solution either through the help provided by the Council or by making their own arrangements.

As the Government funding for this policy began to be reduced, the Council introduced a Rough Sleeping Discretion Policy which ensures that anyone at risk with vulnerabilities to Covid would be accommodated. This was more generous that the statutory policy that was followed previously.

Around 235 individuals were now being accommodated and the Council was in the process of trying to find longer-term solutions for these people. One initiative towards this is the Ermine Road Modular Project which would involve acquiring 39 modular housing units. These are self-contained homes with their own bathrooms, kitchens and living areas brought together with multi-disciplinary support services.

In addition to rough sleepers there were also around 3,100 households in Haringey in temporary accommodation. The number of families approaching the Council as homeless had reduced by around 34% during the pandemic due to the temporary ban on evictions, though this was due to expire on 20^th September 2020.

Looking to the future, analysis suggested that there could be 2,062 households in Haringey at risk of homelessness, of which 1,452 live in the private rented sector. Of these, around half of these households are families, suggesting that around 700 families could be at risk of homelessness when the ban on evictions is lifted. However, were this to happen, it could be quite a slow process and it was expected that the Council would be able to cope with the demand.

Robbie Erbmann and Denise Gandy, Director of Housing Demand at Homes for Haringey (HfH), responded to questions from the Panel as follows:

·         Asked by Cllr Moyeed whether recent events would have helped towards meeting the Council’s existing commitment to end rough sleeping by 2022, Robbie Erbmann said that the work had undoubtedly helped to get people off the streets who had been there for a long time. However, it was currently difficult to map out the future as it was not known what the impact of the economic crisis would be and what level of government support there would be.

·         Asked by Cllr Gordon about how the Council would address the issues resulting from a potential second wave of Covid-19 and a lifting of the ban on evictions at the same time, Robbie Erbmann emphasised that the 700 families referred to previously were only identified as being at risk of homelessness but they were not in the process of being made homeless. Denise Gandy said that around 260 families were going through the eviction process immediately prior to the lockdown but that this all went on hold due to the ban. It was now expected that this process would play out over a much longer time period, probably peaking in the spring of 2021, due to differing notice periods. In preparation for this, the 700 at-risk families that had been identified had been written to, in collaboration with the Citizens Advice Bureaux, in the hope of being able to see them early before their situation reaches crisis point.

·         Asked by Cllr Stone about ongoing support for people with no recourse to public funds, Denise Gandy said that a dedicated Move On resource had been appointed to work with the 80 households with no recourse to public funds. A lot of this activity was directed towards helping people to resolve their immigration status where possible and there had been some limited success with this so far. Where this is not possible it would be necessary to work with partners on a charitable response.