Everyday homelessness

Guest post by Alex.

​The situation described below happened in an internet shop on Camden High Street where I work.

On the 7th of November in the evening, a customer came in to use a computer, he could hardly speak English and after a while I discovered he was Polish, being Polish myself, we could easily communicate.

He asked me to help him with benefit registration and told that he lost all his documents and money 2 weeks ago. He ended up being evicted from his potential house due to inability to pay the deposit (by the time we met he managed to organize a copy of his passport from the Polish Embassy). Due to the above, he had been homeless for last 2 weeks with no more than £7 in his pocket. He emigrated from Poland three weeks before,  leaving his wife and 3 year old daughter to seek a better paid job so he could send money back to his family. He was 23 years of age, brought up in an orphanage back in Poland.

I advised him to find a shelter/hostel rather than benefits as a first move, which he was doing as advised by random people he had spoken to.

Farah is a regular client of the internet cafe, it is near her office in Camden. I was advised by Farah to call an emergency line for homeless to find out about available places around Camden. After a good 40 min on the phone we managed to get through to a consultant, who gave us a phone number to arrange for a Polish speaking interpreter.

We tried to call the help line several times but it was impossible to get through. Every call took at least 40 min to an hour to go through automatic dial and at the end we still hadn't manage to be put through to a consultant. We have tried calling from a mobile phone as well as phone box but unfortunately situation was the same – no answer. We kept calling until 8.00 pm when as we were warned – lines were closed.

The person we tried to secure a safe night for, gave up and walk away for another homeless night on the street…

Open Letter to Grant Shapps, Housing Minister

Ms Farah Damji
Kazuri Properties Ltd
1a Waterlow Road | London | N19 5NJ

The Right Honorable Grant Shapps, MP
Minister for Housing
DGLC

26 March 2012                                                                   URGENT via e mail and Fax

Dear Mr Shapps

I write in dismay about the additional funding being given to charities such as Crisis and Shelter next month,  to “help end homelessness” in the private rented sector.  This is referred hereto on the Crisis PRS website

The Crisis PRS Access Development Programme funds new community based services that help single homeless people find and sustain good quality accommodation in the private rented sector (PRS). It builds on Crisis’ history and expertise in PRS solutions to homelessness and represents an investment of over £10m of DCLG funding over a three year period.

There is no  independent monitoring or evaluation of outcomes or sustainability in what Crisis  and Shelter are doing.     I know of cases in which dozens of tenancies have not been maintained because support was not there for tenants being placed through the scheme, and in others when quite manageable performance targets were reduced by 75% because charities who had been given this funding could not access  private landlords, whom they have to engage in order to get people into properties.  Once a person has been offered a property through the private rented sector they are removed from the Local Authority’s Housing List and are no longer able to access it, therefore  if they cannot maintain the tenancy, they are homeless again  without recourse to the Local Authority or indeed the charity funded by these hare-brained schemes. One I know , Vision Housing   claims to house ex offenders and has been granted  fifty thousand pounds. The owner then insists the tenant also gets a crisis loan from the DWP to pay a “referral fee,” thereby poverty pimping off the most needy and destitute. I am an ex offender, I have gone through the ridiculous process of trying to access suitable housing  and that this is not acceptable, you cannot seek to profit through other people’s desperation, it’s worse than loan sharking or doorstep payday loans which at least are  in the process of being regulated.

I attach a schedule of Kazuri’s outcomes  up to November 2011 so you can see the model works. Not one woman has been sent back to prison, bee convicted of a new offence  or gone back to a violent relationship and we are now expanding the provision to assist Local Authorities move men and women  off the Housing Lists and also out of prison and from Accident and Emergency wards into sustained housing. 

 This has been good for Kazuri, when charities who have been funded through the Crisis grants  have not been able to access landlords  even through letting agencies, they have approached us and paid referral fees because ours is not a leaky charity bucket model which breeds disempowerment ,  we are a social enterprise, with a triple bottom line, human, social and financial return on investment.  Our tenancy agreements actually state the tenant must partake in employment, education and/ or  training, do a minimum of 5 hours of volunteer work  in a recognized project for the benefit of the community to help restore the broken social bond and work with a mentor. We undertake monthly tenancy checks and support our tenants  to become self sufficient, contributing members of society. This is not the model to which charities who have been rinsing Supporting People budgets for years work. They are being paid through Supporting People budgets to keep people on benefits  disempowered and  dependent on Local Housing Allowance. Rather like characters from a Dickens novel, they are paid to retain  a substrata of society  to  stay within the culture of entitlement which is no longer affordable to our society . Sadly in this case, truth is stranger than fiction.

Crisis and Shelter fund charities who cannot compete in the highly competitive private rented sector and whilst there are undoubtedly pockets of good practice, they are not given any outcomes which they have to attain, by Central Government. This is free money, literally for nothing except to manage their own top heavy bureaucratic structures. This  is far removed from this Government’s move away from  non-performance and moving towards rewarding success rather than stagnation  through  the payments by results models. I am greatly concerned at the lengths to which Crisis and Shelter attempt  to demonize and indeed criminalize all landlords with their recent Rogue Landlords campaign and by the flyer attached herewith , which I picked up in my local Sainsbury’s  supermarket. 

The sector has long called for regulation and good landlords, which are the vast majority do not condone or participate in the illegal activities of a few rogue landlords who are common criminals, benefitting from the poorest and most vulnerable in society . Indeed one of the most respected landlord’s organizations has just started a petition asking the Government to bring in mandatory licensing of lettings agencies. This should  be supported and applauded. I ask where the funding is coming from for the film that Shelter has commissioned  and whether this has been sanctioned by Government. Surely it is in everyone’s interest to work with the landlords who are the gateway to the private rented sector, not disgust and alienate them completely.  Why then would they  encourage name-calling and  hostility towards those people who must engage in the process of providing shelter.  When private landlords see  campaigns based on bullying, they cease to offer their properties up to the private rented sector. Let’s face it, who hasn’t been burnt by private rented sector “incentives” run by Local Authorities? Tower Hamlets and Brighton councils are now planning to run their own social lettings agencies.  With the amount of bad feeling and arrears  they generate and the rush to remove risk and responsibility to the private  sector, these schemes are doomed to fail and I will be there lighting the funeral pyre when they implode and Heads of Housing are asked why they didn’t act in cooperation with landlords  rather than trying to change the sector to fit public sector preconceptions, backwards momentum and rigidity. 

 The voluntary sector cannot take on the risk or the responsibility as pointed out by Bernard Jenkin,    Chair of the Public Administration Select Committee (PASC)   recently when discussing the failure of the Government’s much touted Work Program. There  is no transparency in the process around which funds are decanted to  Crisis or to Shelter and no transparency either in the way these funds are given the charities who benefit or to the tenants they are supposedly placing in tenancies. 

Until the complete and audited evaluation of the current funding schemes in place and a report  is published concerning  what has actually been achieved in the way of sustained (longer than 6 months) tenancies and other outcomes, such as lessened benefits and journey travelled towards employment or education, I must ask that this next round of funding is suspended. There is no case to be made for simply passing money on to charities who do NOT help homeless people and who have never built a building or been a landlord.  Based on the Housing First model which Kazuri has successfully deployed, there is no point offering jewelry making classes, as do Crisis in their lovely building (located in a prime location and expensively staffed),  for people to get into work as they cannot work if they have nowhere to live. The voluntary sector cannot sustain the risk of the responsibility to engage the private rented sector in this manner. Shelter and Crisis are good at academia, policy and research, let them raise and generate funding for that, not pretend to be tinkering round actually putting people into long term homes, which is the heart of the problem.

Kazuri is in the process of compiling a response along with some of the largest landlord organizations and regulatory bodies, developers, builders, town planners , property lawyers and housing specialists  as well as institutional investors and high street banks   to Sir Adrian Montague’s call for consultation asking why the private and institutional investor will not engage in the private rented sector. I would urge you to wait till the evaluations of Sir Adrian’s findings  before funding anymore “charity”  private rented sector schemes. 

I hope to hear from you as a matter of urgency. I am considering having the funding  issue brought forward to the Public Accounts Committee and will seek Judicial Review about the process as to how the funding has been allocated. I trust this will not be necessary.

Kind regards

Farah Damji
Director of Development
Kazuri  Properties Ltd

Crisis in crisis

A challenge to Heather Munro of London Probation Trust: 
Why not engage responsibly with the private rented sector, not a bunch of policy wonks? How many of your people on license have Crisis helped into sustainable private rented sector tenancies which have lasted the duration of the term? Charities such as Crisis and Shelter have a place in effecting research and a framework for good policy and practise   but generally,  landlords will not engage directly and PRS schemes  they have  funded  have not evidenced sustained success.

How can you help empower ex offenders to manage sustainable tenancies? Ex offenders need to understand their rights and responsibilities as tenants and  tell their story to landlords in a way that empowers their  desistance, not be held back by entering into badly managed poor tenancies in which landlords are lied to, not explained EXACTLY what the ex offender's background is and in which the tenancy fails and you  perpetuate the cycle of homelessness. Tell you what, we'll send along two of our most powerful trainers and  tenant advocates for a free day of training to probation officers and those on licences in the community.

We wholeheartedly support Crisis and Shelter's work in lobbying for changes in policy and addressing the  need for research in this sector but they are not equipped to deal professionally  with the private sector, landlords have been burnt by too many Private Rented Schemes designed by charities who do not understand that the bottom line for every landlord has to be sustainability and to be able to pay his mortgage and related outgoings on a rented property. Too many tenancies have been missold by the  Social Lettings Agency model purveyed by Local Authorities. Till you start to engage with the private rented sector, you don't have a chance of helping people on probation achieving successful, supported tenancies with buy in from all the stakeholders engaged.  Let's talk, Ms Munro.

Heather Munro, London Probation Trust

Lovely press release, time for action.

March 15 2012

'Homelessness' contributory factor to offending

Over a quarter of London offenders serving their sentence in the community have housing as a ‘criminogenic need’* - according to data from the UK’s largest probation trust.

London Probation Trust (LPT) has over 40,000** offenders on its books at any one time and is the largest service of its kind in Europe.

LPT Chief Executive Heather Munro said: "Homelessness is an issue probation officers will come across on a daily basis when dealing with the offenders under their supervision.

"Most people working in probation would probably say the lack of stable accommodation, a place to call ‘home’, is one of the biggest contributing factors when it comes to offending and reoffending. It’s well known that if you are sleeping rough or moving from place to place that you are more likely to end up reoffending.

"Our data shows that 27*** per cent of the offenders on our books have problems with their accommodation. Usually this will be just one of several issues we have to help offenders deal with as part of addressing their criminal behaviour. Offenders tend to have complex backgrounds with multiple concerns – lack of skills, lack of employment, low finances, problems with substance abuse etc; and they are often compounded by issues with housing."

Heather pinpoints the direct link between homelessness and offending as the most likely reason her staff voted Crisis as their 2012 Charity of the Year.

She said: "I’m very pleased to be supporting Crisis – and not at all surprised that it came out top in our staff poll.

"We’re already working with them in our approved premises, where they provide free employment and skills advice to offenders as well as help some of them to secure more permanent accommodation.

"Crisis is a great charity and we will be exploring ways for staff to donate their time as volunteers as well as raise funds for this worthwhile cause."

Last year LPT staff raised money for several charities, including the Cassandra Learning Centre; Setu Nepal and MacMillan Cancer Support.

ENDS

*There are several criminogenic needs which are identified in the Offender Assessment System (OASys) tool. The guidance states:

"There is clear evidence that lack of permanent decent accommodation is related to re-offending. Those of no fixed abode or who are living in hostels, especially hostels with other offenders, are more likely to offend. Those who have many changes of address are more likely to re-offend. Accommodation can also be seen as a proxy measure for social exclusion. Not having a postal address can have serious and widespread consequences. Living in a high crime area is an environmental factor that can affect the rate of re-offending. A sudden change of accommodation status can lead to a significant change in the likelihood of reconviction very quickly, so this section is one of the most ‘dynamic’ area is OASys. Carlisle (1996), when discussing the housing needs of ex-prisoners, reviewed research that clearly showed a link between unsuitable accommodation and the rate of reconviction. (OASys Manual, 2002)

**This figure includes offenders who are currently on licence in the community as well as those under LPT’s supervision in prison.

***This figure only applies to those offenders currently on licence or serving their sentence in the community and for whom an OASys assessment is available. The OASys data is from the assessments over the last 12 months.

Boost to the Private Rented Sector

The housing minister has revealed the person who will lead the government’s review of barriers to investment in rented homes.

Sir Adrian Montague, a former member of the Housing Finance Group, will examine how best to encourage greater investment in rental properties - helping support the rapid growth of the private rented sector by increasing the supply of affordable homes.

Sir Adrian Montague, one of Gordon Brown's City fixers

The government’s housing strategy published last month highlighted the range of steps being taken to increase the supply of new homes.
Mr Shapps said: ‘The sector has seen several years of strong growth and increasing standards, but in some areas rents have begun to rise faster than wages.
‘Over three million households live in privately rented homes, so it’s vital that we take steps to ensure the sector’s continuing growth and affordability.
‘Sir Adrian brings with him a wealth of experience and knowledge of the role of the private sector in boosting infrastructure investment and of housing policy, making him an excellent choice to lead the review.’
Sir Adrian said: ‘The private rental sector has gone through a period of rapid growth, and it’s crucial that the government does all it can to ensure that demand continues to be met. I aim to help remove barriers to investment, contributing to the continuing health of a sector that millions of people rely on.’