Councils urge Government to ensure all parts of funding system for tackling homelessness work in tandem
The Local Government Association (LGA) has largely backed the Government’s proposed changes in funding arrangements for the Homelessness Prevention Grant, dissenting only over the use of mean rents in the private rented sector as a measure of temporary accommodation costs.
In its response, the LGA said: "The Homelessness Prevention Grant (HPG) is only one part of the overall funding landscape for homelessness. We encourage the Government to ensure that all parts of the funding system – including funding for temporary accommodation, homelessness prevention and supported housing - are working in tandem to achieve value for money and deliver the goal of ending homelessness.”
Councils are supportive of the Government’s objective to incentive homelessness prevention and reduce temporary accommodation costs, but this could only happen if ministers address the temporary accommodation subsidy gap to allow greater investment in prevention via the HPG.
The LGA said: “Overall levels of funding must be sufficient to meet homelessness challenges. This should include ongoing resource to meet a potential increase in resettlement pressures, for example households facing breakdowns in tenancies as they approach the end date of their Ukraine visa scheme and apply for the Ukraine permission extension scheme.”
Funding must reflect future costs and rising demand, not just past allocations, the association said, with any formula being practical to use and “avoiding excessive administrative burdens,”
There was agreement with the Government’s plan to use total Housing Benefit plus Universal Credit claimants as a measure of homelessness demand.
This should though take account of ‘local nuances’ such as high levels of demand from households about to leave Home Office asylum seeker accommodation, who would not be captured as they are not claimants.
The LGA supported a proposal to use mean rents in the private rented sector as a measure of homelessness costs as it said the current Revenue Outturn tables (RO4) could be inaccurate.
It did though object to the idea of using the same metric as a measure of temporary accommodation costs.
“The proposal to use ‘mean rents in the PRS’ does not adequately reflect the high costs of temporary accommodation, particularly in areas where the cost of emergency accommodation is significantly higher than standard rental rates,” the response said.
Research from the Centre for Homelessness Impact had shown in some regions the unit costs of temporary accommodation could be up to three times higher than the equivalent costs of private rented sector accommodation.
“The proposal to use mean PRS rents would have a significant adverse impact in these areas, with disproportionate impacts on some regions,” the LGA concluded.
Mark Smulian
