Meetings

APPG for Households in Temporary Accommodation Annual General Meeting (AGM).

Purpose of meeting: To re-elect the Chair and Officers of the APPG

Date: 10/11/2026
Time: 17.00 – 18.00

This is a closed meeting.

9th All-Party Parliamentary Group for Households in Temporary Accommodation meeting.

Meeting topic: Parliamentary launch of the report “It’s like torture: Life in Temporary Accommodation for Neurodivergent Children and their Families”

Date: 09/02/2025
Time: 15.30 – 16.30
Location: Room 17, Palace of Westminster

Joint Secretariats: Shared Health Foundation (SHF) and Justlife (JL)

Attendees in person:

Dame Siobhain McDonagh MP (Mitchem & Morden, Labour), Margaret Mullane MP (Dagenham and Rainham, Labour), Prof Katherine Brickell (King’s College London), Dr Rosalie Warnock (King’s College London), Agatha and Elizabeth Phiri (Lived Experience), Emily Palmer (MHCLG), Emma Bowen (MHCLG), Amanda Rosestorf (Autistica), Clare Vincent (King’s College London), Claire Davis (King’s College London), Mhairi-Jean Ross (Sensory Lives RA), Karen Torres (IRMO), Samuel Thomas (Z2K), Niki Lampaski (Housing Inclusion Hackney), Rachel Nkiessu-Guifo (Housing Inclusion Hackney), Sandra Addae (JoshyBoy Legacy), Ysabella Hawkins (Camden), Neelam Kumar (Camden), Roxanna Glennon (Brent), Ian Swift (Islington), Jocasta Kelsey (Civic Nest), Catherine Virdee (Civic Nest), Kath Swindells (Inside Housing), Thea Grattidge (GT Stewart), Clémence Coignard (GT Stewart), Amarjit Bains (Bridges Outcomes Partnership), Deborah Garvie (Shelter), Fiona McLeod (Shelter), Gifty Amponsah (The Magpie Project), Fabio Serrato Radigonda (King’s College London), Luis Alberto Balboa Conoen (King’s College London), Dr Priti Dipak Mohandas (King’s College London), Jiawen Zhang (King’s College London), Fraser Curry (King’s College London), Alison May (Consultant), Nina Kowalska (Consultant), Anja Blazewicz (Cardinal Hume), Dave Saunders (Cardinal Hume),George O’Neill (Cardinal Hume),  Kim Farlow (Homestart), Josie Atkins (Homestart), Srilata Sircar (King’s College London), Alan Morton, Beth Adams (Childhood Trust), Rebecca Walker (Caris Families), Isabel Kaner (SHF), Iva Pehlivanova (SHF), Morgan Tebbs (Justlife), David McGregor (Justlife), Ben Orna-Ornstein (Justlife), Saoirse Herbert Barry (Justlife), Mark Phillippo (Justlife)

Panellists:

Prof Katherine Brickell, Professor of Urban Studies, King’s College London

Dr Rosalie Warnock, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, King’s College London

Agatha Phiri, Lived Experience

Elizabeth Phiri, Lived Experience

Meeting

Siobhain McDonagh MP, Chair of the APPG:

Welcomes and introduces Prof Katherine Brickell and Dr Rosalie Warnock, authors of the report.

Professor Katherine Brickell, Professor of Urban Studies, King’s College London:

It’s a real privilege to be here at the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Households in Temporary Accommodation and the APPG has been a real tour de force in shining a consistent light on the conditions facing families who are just too often unheard.

We’d like to thank the Shared Health Foundation, Justlife, Autistica and the parents, the carers, the practitioners, the young people who submitted their contributions and the courage that shaped this report that we have here before us. 

Now, this report really does matter, because if we want to understand whether a system is functioning, we need to look closely at how it treats its children. So by that measure, temporary accommodation in the UK is gravely failing neurodivergent children. As we know, there are 172,000 children in England alone who are growing up in environments that are typically overcrowded, unstable, poorly regulated and in many cases unsafe. These conditions harm all children, but our evidence shows that neurodivergent children experience them acutely distressing, overwhelming and traumatising.

There were 61 submissions to the national call for evidence, including testimony from parents, carers, practitioners, and we gathered more than 280 detailed accounts describing the sensory, psychological, educational, safeguarding and financial consequences of living in temporary accommodation. What was striking was the consistency of what we heard. Many families told us that for neurodivergent children, temporary accommodation feels like torture.

It’s a language that families themselves used to describe their daily lives, and it’s a reality that demands urgent political attention, which is why this APPG and all the efforts here are so important. Families describe relentless sensory and emotional harm. So, temporary accommodation can often be loud, it can be brightly lit, it can be smelly, it can be cramped, and unpredictable. 

For neurodivergent children whose nervous systems process sound, light touch and uncertainty in different ways, these environments can feel unbearable. Parents describe children who could not sleep because of noise, lighting, or fear. Children who lost the ability to self-regulate, becoming withdrawn, hyper-vigilant or panic-stricken. Some children were driven to self-harm, so one young person explained that they were so overwhelmed by snoring and sensory overload at night that they scratched themselves to the extent that they cried. And families, this was quite telling, use words such as “open prison”, “horrific” and “unrelenting” to describe their daily experiences. So many of these environments are not just distressing, but they are actually dangerous. Families encountered unsecured windows in high-rise buildings, hazardous staircases, exposed gas hobs within easy reach of children with limited danger awareness, shared spaces with vulnerable adults and housing affected by damp, infestations and, in one instance, sewage leaks.

For neurodivergent children with sensory needs, mobility challenges or conditions such as Pica, for example, where children may eat wires, these situations are not merely unsuitable; they’re actively life-threatening. And we have an infographic in the report that describes all the different risks and hazards that we could identify in the call for evidence. And I think this is really important for local authorities to take away, discuss and act on. 

The harms extended to education and health. Because temporary accommodation often involves multiple moves between boroughs, neurodivergent children frequently fell off waiting lists for diagnostic assessments, lost access to the Children and Adolescents Mental Health Service, which is known as CAMHS, lost access to speech and language therapy, to occupational therapy and to specialist services, and they often saw their Education, Health and Care Plan, so their EHC Plan, interrupted or downgraded when they moved across a borough line. Many missed extended periods of schooling, and long journeys from temporary accommodation triggered sensory overload that made school attendance extremely difficult. Parents told us repeatedly that the educational disruption their children experienced would affect them for the rest of their lives. And these pressures understandably affected whole families. And so in the report, we advocate for a whole families approach to looking at these experiences. Siblings sharing beds or rooms far beyond safe ages, some families being separated because the accommodation was too small or unsafe for those family members to remain together, including siblings. Parents were unable to work, rest or meet the basic needs of their children. Many parents, sometimes neurodivergent themselves, describe feeling disbelieved and dismissed by the systems around them. Caring responsibilities increased to unmanageable levels, and the emotional toll, as you can understand, on parents was profound. 

A central finding of this report is that the system is not simply stretched. It is structured in a way that produces predictable harm. Housing, education, health and social care systems operate in silos with minimal communication, if anything, between them. Housing offices are making decisions with profound consequences for children’s wellbeing, but too often without training in neurodiversity or trauma-informed practice. And that is also around training, for example, in allocations. Temporary accommodation providers lack consistent guidelines or regulatory standards that would enable them to protect vulnerable children. Families are left navigating multiple bureaucracies that do not recognise the specific vulnerabilities of neurodivergent children. 

When the state repeatedly places children in conditions that undermine their health, their development, safety and education, and when those harms are known and avoidable, we must ask whether this is simply the result of poor policy, or whether it amounts to systemic child cruelty.

 

Dr Rosalie Warnock, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, King’s College London:

The recommendations in the report set out a clear and constructive path for change. Overarching this is our call for the incorporation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into UK law. Doing so would ensure that every housing and homelessness decision considers a child’s right to safety, education, play, stability and protection from harm. This already exists in Scotland, and England, Wales and Northern Ireland should follow suit. 

Further to this, we have five key asks. There are many recommendations set out in the report, but these are our five key ones. First, we are asking that the Homelessness Code of Guidance has a new chapter on children. So this is currently a glaring omission in this guidance. And this chapter must include guidance on supporting homeless neurodivergent children. Additionally, the code currently only refers to physical disabilities and mental health illnesses when assessing the suitability of accommodation as a qualification for priority needs, so it does not include neurodivergence as a qualification for priority need, and this should be rectified across the code. 

Second, we need to address the serious data gaps. Currently, government homelessness statistics provide no information about neurodivergent children in TA. Without data, effective policy is impossible. We recommend adding neurodiversity fields to H-CLIC and ensuring that the SAFE Protocol is implemented so schools and GPs are notified when a child becomes homeless, so it’s great that this is in the process. On H-CLIC, we’re keen to work with a local authority to pilot this, recording this extra data, so if there’s a local authority here that would like to be at the forefront of policy change, then please let us know. 

Third, we recommend mandatory neurodiversity and trauma-informed training for housing offices so they can conduct meaningful housing needs assessments, recognise sensory and safety requirements, avoid placements that are predictably harmful, and be part of productive, multi-agency teams in local authorities. Our recommendations here also include thorough inspections of temporary accommodation before a family with a neurodivergent child is expected to move into that property. Best practice should also extend to housing officers sitting on EHCP assessment panels. These recommendations are all in line with the new Duty to Collaborate, set out in the 2025 National Plan to End Homelessness. 

Fourth, we recommend reducing out-of-area placements for families and, given the acute need for continuity of education and health support for neurodivergent children in particular, to prioritise neurodivergent children for in-area placements. The Local Government Association’s Out of Area Protocol, which recommends this, should be urgently updated and strengthened. And there should also be a minimum notice period for non-emergency temporary accommodation moves.

Fifth, placing children and families in B&Bs and hostels should be a never event, full stop. In the immediate term, ensuring that the six-week legal limit to stays in hotels and B&Bs is enforced is essential, with priority given to neurodivergent children. This is because the safeguarding risks of placing neurodivergent children in mixed accommodation with shared facilities, like B&Bs and hostels, are even higher. In almost all emergency accommodation and many other forms of temporary accommodation, visitor bans prevent parents from accessing respite or support from a trusted adult. Relaxing visitor bans in all forms of temporary accommodation is essential for keeping children safe, and this is especially the case for single parents. Continuing to place vulnerable families in mixed accommodation of any kind without respite and in full knowledge of risks could have fatal consequences, and this practice must end immediately. 

Finally, we propose reducing financial pressures on families by introducing targeted income maximisation programmes for those with disabled and neurodivergent children living in temporary accommodation, and we are currently piloting this with Camden Council. Additionally, we recommend the setting up of a sensory needs fund to support the additional costs of raising disabled or neurodivergent children in temporary accommodation specifically.

So before we close, we want to highlight that our report should be used alongside the work of Impact on Urban Health. They’ve just published 2026 Legal Guidance, which is an essential resource for families, legal professionals, councils and wider services supporting people in temporary accommodation with neurodivergent children. So together, our report and their legal guidance provide both the lived experience evidence and the practical legal frameworks needed to drive meaningful and lawful change. And used side by side, they offer a powerful foundation for transforming the system’s response to neurodivergent children and families. And there will be specific targeted training coming out of this research at a later date for local authority housing officers and support services. 

We just want to end by expressing our gratitude to every parent, carer, practitioner, child and young person who has contributed to this work, to date. Their testimonies are at the heart of everything we’ve presented today, and their words carry the moral weight of lived experience. 

To the parliamentarians and policymakers here today, you have the power to act on these findings, and you have before you a set of clear recommendations that could transform the lives of thousands of children. Temporary accommodation should never result in permanent harm. And let this report be the moment we commit to ensuring it no longer does. Thank you.

Siobhain McDonagh MP:

Thank you both very much. 

Thank you, Agatha, for being brave enough to come and tell us about your lived experience. And your daughter is Elizabeth. And welcome, Elizabeth, for your testimony as well. 

Agatha Phiri, Lived Experience:

My name is Agatha Phiri. I’m a Founder and Director of Agatha’s Space, a community organisation supporting women living with HIV and those forbidden to work due to their immigration status. At Agatha’s Space, we mentor women by helping them to build their confidence and develop skills and access volunteer opportunities to build their UK work experience. I’m not here to talk about myself or what I do, but I wanted you to know that this single mother, who is being punished by the system, is contributing greatly to the economy of this country for free. I’ve lived in the UK for 17 years. 14 of those years, I was pushing for my immigration status. But all those years of volunteering and hard work were erased by the Home Office, so I have been in the UK for two and a half years. 

I received my Leave to Remain decision in 2023, but little did I know that that freedom was going to land us in homelessness. We were given seven days of eviction notice. Then Oldham Council gave us an address 30 miles from my daughter’s school. There was no public transport, so I booked taxis every single day. It was costing me £35 one way and another £35 back. Plus food, I was spending over £100 a day. I had just started working, and my pay was only £1,000. £100 a day was too much for me. I asked the school if I could take Elizabeth out of school until my situation was stable, but they said no. They took over the taxi responsibility, but they said it was only going to be for three days. 

I decided to take action. I wrote my story on Twitter and tagged every council leader. Before an hour passed, the leader of Oldham Council contacted me. They asked me to pack all my belongings the following morning, but never gave me the address to go to. I was stuck at my daughter’s school in the morning, at the playground with my bags hanging around. Later, they sent me an address to a small, tiny room in the middle of Oldham town centre.

The room was designed for a 2 to 3-day short stay, but we stayed there for over a year. We were opposite a drug dealer’s rehabilitation centre, so all the drug dealers smoked, drank and took drugs on my window. Police were there day and night, and noise was a non-starter. There were fights, door banging and all chaotic activities every single day. We were not allowed guests, so we celebrated birthdays the two of us, in a single tiny room. Elizabeth has ADHD and suspected autism. She has sensory issues, and noise affects her a lot. She says her body hurts when it’s loud. But this room was a headquarters of noise. I complained, but nobody cared. Elizabeth was late to school every single day, and she missed her lessons. She is going through a lot right now. She has been referred to a lot of mental health support, and her support team says this is due to her traumatic experiences in the temporary accommodation. 

Seven months ago, we were given a home. We were told it was permanent. We believed that this was the start of our stable life after 17 years. But before we could settle, I am due for my two and a half year Leave to Remain application. I need £4,900 to pay the Home Office to allow me to stay in this country for another two and a half years. I’ll be doing this until 2032. Part of this money is my contribution towards the NHS, even though I already contribute through my National Insurance every month. I am an immigrant. I have to pay again. This means I pay twice for my healthcare. I don’t have £4,900. I’m a single parent with no financial support from anyone, so I have applied for a fee waiver. I applied for a fee waiver last week; I’m just waiting for a decision. If I am refused and I can’t pay that by the 26th of February this year, I will lose my status, and I will end up being homeless again by next month.

Children like Elizabeth, who have special needs, cannot cope with repeated moves, fear and uncertainty. Temporary accommodation damages their mental health and their future. I am kindly asking you to make the right decisions for children with special needs to protect them from mental health and to protect them from being homeless. And please stop punishing children because their parents were not born here. Thank you.

Elizabeth Phiri, Lived Experience:

My name is Elizabeth Phiri. I am nine years old, and I’m in Year 5. My mum said that if talking about the traumatic experiences I had in temporary accommodation will trigger me, I should not talk about it. I do not want to be triggered, so I will not talk about it. But I have questions for you all.

My school friends worry about homework, spelling tests or even being told off by the teacher. But I worry about finding my mother dead one day because of stress and anxiety caused by the policies you make. I worry if I’ll have a permanent home. I worry about the immigration policies you make that want children like me homeless. I worry if my future matters in your decision-making. My question is, I hear children are the future, but does this future include migrant children like me? If you had a special child like me, what would you want their future to start like?

Lastly, if my future matters, why does it feel like you are blocking it? If I am late to school every day and missing lessons and fail to live a life like a normal child because I am homeless, how will my future be bright? Thank you.

Questions from the room

Siobhain McDonagh MP:

Final remarks and thanks.

Meeting concluded at 4:30 pm.

8th All-Party Parliamentary Group for Households in Temporary Accommodation meeting.

Date: 25/02/2025
Time: 16.00-17.00
Location: Room W3, Westminster Hall

Joint Secretariats: Shared Health Foundation (SHF) and Justlife (JL)

Attendees in person:
Dame Siobhain McDonagh MP (Mitchem & Morden, Labour), Sam Pratt (SHF), Mike Reader MP (Northampton South, Labour), Helena Dollimore MP (Hastings and Rye, Labour), Theo Shaw (staffer to Mike Reader MP), Rhydian Crabb (staffer to Siobhain McDonagh MP), Eliza Castell (staffer to Danny Beales MP), Emily Jones (MHCLG), Andrew Achilleos (staffer to Margaret Mullane MP), Rebecca Dove (Headteacher), Dr Aaminah Verity (GP and Health Inclusion Campaigner), Erica Scott (Citizens UK), Emily Barker (4 in 10), Iva Pehlivanova (SHF), Isabel Kaner (SHF), Morgan Tebbs (Justlife).

Number of attendees online: 34

Panellists:
Theo Shaw, Staffer for Mike Reader MP and lived experience
Dr Aaminah Verity, GP and Health Campaigner
Rebecca Dove, Headteacher
Sam Pratt, Policy and Communications Lead, Shared Health Foundation

Agenda:
4pm. Introductions from Siobhain McDonagh MP, Chair (5mins)
Opening video – SAFE Campaign
4:05pm – In conversation with Theo Shaw (10 mins)
Theo has lived experience of living in Temporary Accommodation and now works for an MP in Parliament.
4:15pm Dr Aaminah Verity. GP and health inclusion campaigner (5 mins)
4:20pm Rebecca Dove. Headteacher (5 mins)
4:25 Update on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill (5 mins)
Video of Minister for Homelessness
4:30pm Comments and questions from MPs and Zoom (25 mins)
4:55pm Final words and actions from Chair (5 mins)

Meeting 

Siobhain McDonagh MP, Chair of the APPG:

Welcomes and introduces the campaign video

Sam Pratt:

To Theo – Can you tell me about your time in temporary accommodation as a child?

Theo Shaw:

I have been in temporary accommodation twice in my life – I was born in TA and lived in a mother and baby unit that was run by the local authority until I was 3, my mum was a teenager and care leaver herself so ended up in that window post-16 where she fell through accommodation gaps and ended up homeless and so that’s where I spent the first few years. 

When I was 16 I ended up in TA again and lived in two different facilities before I was 18, before moving to University. I moved local authority areas in that time, from the London borough of Havering up to Bolton in Greater Manchester. The first place I stayed at was a hostel. It had a bed, 7pm to 7am, with the expectation that for the rest of the day, you were at work or college. I then moved to a building run by a charity where you had your own flat, with other residents that were also homeless. It was funded through housing benefit that went straight to the charity. We had what was back then income support but became universal credit. You had to pay service charge and your bills out of that money and so there wasn’t really very much left over at the end of it. 

I was there for two years prior to me leaving for University. I think it is a brilliant charity and I am still in contact with them and do some work with them. I had a really positive experience with the housing side of it, but as the video shows, it’s the other parts of the experience that are difficult, such as accommodating college and letting services know. 

Something from that video I hadn’t thought about, when the little girl is falling asleep in class, just how noisy where I lived was. You’re living in a block of flats with 40 other people in the same position as you, and they’ve all got their own different issues so it was impossible to sleep. I remember being tired all the time while I was at college. 

Sam:

It sounds like there was a lot going on, with lots of moves and support services might not have been aware of what was going on. How do you think your college, GP or other support services would have responded if they knew your situation?

Theo:

My circumstances were slightly different in that I was street homeless for a couple of weeks and the way that I got help was by telling my college myself because I didn’t know anybody where I was living anymore, the family placement I had, had fallen through. I was stuck not knowing who to contact. So my friends had noticed me being more tired and dishevelled and I was too embarrassed to say anything, but they encouraged me to talk to the safeguarding team at college and I informed them myself. They are the ones that helped me get the placement through the local authority with the charity. The college was helpful once they were aware but there was no way for them to know that and the GP surgery, I actually got off-rolled when I eventually changed my address. I got a letter saying I was no longer in their area so I needed to change GPs. That was the only contact I had from the GP during that time. It was a case of, if I had not reached out to contact them and inform them they wouldn’t know. It is different at the age of 16 compared to 7 to have the foresight to do that, but the services wouldn’t have been aware at all had I not informed them. 

I had been under CAMHS for years at that point, they were not aware that I was homeless and that I had been moved out of borough. There was no communication between the services I had been working with. I had a post-adoption support worker, they were not aware I had been made homeless until the college told them. There was no network of support and no continuity of information between these services. 

This is less of a personal perspective, when I was at university I worked as a support worker for young people. A good proportion, probably about 80% of my time as a support worker, was informing these services of the changes in circumstance of the young people and keeping them informed. There is no requirement to do that, but it made it impossible to get the kids the help they needed without doing so. We often found barriers when it came to the local authority, some are different and better than others, but at least in Lincolnshire, we were getting nothing. The council were not taking proactive steps to ensure that information was being shared. It wasn’t possible to get the right support for them without it. 

My personal circumstances make it a bit different, my age definitely helped as I was able to tell them myself. But for the younger children, if they didn’t have anyone to advocate for them the information would not get passed on and it was really affecting them at school. 

Sam:

Where are you now? Where are you working?

Theo:

I work for Mike Reader MP. I was Mike’s organiser during the general election campaign. I worked for the Labour Party for a year and a half prior to the election and I’m his parliamentary lead now. 

It’s not a situation I expected to be in, I wasn’t sure that I was going to finish my A Levels as they are not really at the top of your mind when you are homeless. I was really lucky that the charity I got placed with and the accommodation I was placed in, as they gave me a support worker who I am still in touch with. He had gone to university and knew that I was quite academic, so pushed me a lot, but also helped me access support services, helped me fill out my Uni application, declare estrangement and put me forward for bursaries. Without me being very lucky in that housing provider, I probably wouldn’t have graduated and definitely would not have ended up working for the Labour Party as a result. I had a very rare positive experience with my TA because I’ve heard horror stories from my friends who never got adopted and grew up completely in foster care and then got passed between TA and moved around a lot as children. They didn’t have the same experience and have not ended up in the same place. If there is anything that can be done, like this campaign, that can mitigate the risk and lack of control to make sure that relevant services are informed and families are supported through that experience, the better. You have much more of a chance of getting outcomes like mine. 

Sam: 

Reads out written testimony. 

Rose is a parliamentary staffer to an MP also. It would be interesting to know how many other people work in this place that have similar stories as well. Rose has written this but she could not make it today. 

“When I was studying for my A Levels, my family were evicted from my childhood home that I had lived in my whole life. I was away for the entrance interview for Cambridge and had left thinking I would be away for a few days and return to the place I called home. 

My family were placed in TA 2 and a half hours away from home and my school. As I was close to sitting my exams I had no choice but to carry on trying to attend my school. I confided in a teacher who tried their best to find somewhere for me to stay locally but it didn’t work out, meaning I had a long commute every day and had to find somewhere to sleep in between lessons. 

Before we were evicted, I had been receiving support from my GP with my panic attacks and had confided in them about what was going on in my personal life. But looking back, at no point was this information communicated with my school. So it ended up just being me receiving the bits of support in silo. 

I had no desk to study so I would do my work on the floor. When the pandemic hit I was left trying to cope in TA that was very poor and dangerous. I think that joined-up support would have been able to help identify that I wasn’t living in appropriate living conditions whilst trying to stay in school for the time during lockdown. 

I am fortunate enough that I have been to uni and work here in Parliament. I am trying to use my voice as much as possible to help people experiencing this now, this is one of the reasons that I am standing for councillor in the upcoming local elections so that I can push for more support for those living in TA and can help implement the SAFE in my local area.”

What you were describing really resonates with Rose’s story, it’s you as the young person having to advocate for yourself and through your experiences so far, it must have been very difficult having to go to the school and the GP to tell them your situation. We want to remove that awkwardness and potential shame, and the barriers that young people, families and children have when placed in TA as it can be the most complex and chaotic period of your life and we want to make sure it is as healthy as possible. What did you notice about Rose’s story that resonates with yours?

Theo:

Not having a desk and nowhere to study. I was talking to Mike about when I was staying at the hostel and had nowhere to do my work, so I would sit at the bus stop near the accommodation to do my homework. The accommodation didn’t have WiFi, they would suggest you get a phone SIM with unlimited data for £20 a month, but I didn’t have the money. Finding time to do homework and trying to stay in college as late as possible to use their wifi, you don’t think about impacting your schooling. 

When you experience something like that, it can really either destroy you as a person because it is really, really hard, or you can come out of it wanting to change things. It definitely contributed to me wanting to be a support worker myself. My support worker had a huge impact on my life, so if I can do that for someone else as Rose is with her role in Parliament. I remember being absolutely shocked that informing all these services isn’t something that happens already. There are so many things in our scenarios, lots of other people I know from TA, their lives would have been so much easier if they had not had to jump between services, advocating for themselves and if it was something that could have been done uniformly for services it would have been much better. 

Siobhain: 

Introduces Dr Aaminah Verity, GP and Health Inclusion Campaigner. 

Dr Aaminah Verity:

I am a GP, I work in Lewisham, and I work in a mainstream GP practice that is in an area of high deprivation with a high proportion of people experiencing homelessness. I am currently running a programme leading GPs as health equity fellows for their primary care networks and we support them to partner with local community organisations that can design interventions to address health inequalities. 

Through my work in my own clinic room and networking with health equity fellows, we quickly identified that if we were talking about health inequalities, poor quality housing is one of the main drivers and really significant drivers of health inequalities in Lewisham. 

We partnered with Citizens UK to start supporting our residents and navigating the health and housing crisis. So many patients tell us that they are at risk of becoming homeless, they say they are in debt, in food or fuel poverty due to unaffordable housing. We are never directly informed when they then become homeless and move into TA. We do see the impacts of our patients suffering due to the uncertainty and disruption to their appointments from being moved around. They miss hospital appointments, medication supply is interrupted, they don’t attend screenings and face long commutes to see their registered GPs. Along with the psychological burden of being in TA, which is a lot of the time completely substandard. 

We see asthma cases that cannot be controlled because symptoms are constantly being triggered by environmental exposures mould and damp, leading to life-threatening emergencies and recurrent consultations as well as A&E attendance. 

We see skin conditions, accidental injuries, particularly common in children from overcrowding in unsuitable accommodation. There is a really severe burden of the impact of the mental health crisis being in overcrowded environments, lack of temperature control and damp/mould. The stress can really impact chronic health conditions that worsen as families are moved around, navigating their homelessness. 

Most practices have a separate team of staff that deals with registrations and deregistrations. When a family moves out of catchment and tries to make an appointment, the team flags the administrator and sends a letter to suggest moving to a new GP or being out of catchment area and often does not come to inform the GP. Often it is in the patient’s best interest to be registered closer to their address as registering and access is not easy away from their address. But if the patient is not able to advocate for themselves then there is no way of knowing that moving away was not their choice and can leave them without healthcare. If we are made aware that they are vulnerable then we can support them in many ways. We can make sure they have flexible appointment times. They can be linked with care coordinators who could support them with navigating referrals now they are out of area. We can open up discussions about what is the best way to support them now they are outside of the area and is it better for them to register locally or can we help support them here. We can make sure they have access to regular medications and reviews. We can also provide proactive referrals to allied professionals called social prescribers who can identify other support services to help families stay well. 

The most important is that we can make sure they are triaged appropriately and prioritised for appointments, and be on alert for safeguarding concerns. We can make sure every contact counts. We do this in Lewisham and lots of other practices are doing but this requires capacity and resources that overstretched general practice doesn’t really have. Working with Citizens has started constructive work with the council and ICS, with headteacher colleagues so we can better support families experiencing homelessness. We have identified some of the key needs and one of these is having access to transparent and more equitable ways of escalating those who have increasing needs and those who are in immediate stress. 

Working collectively has ensured we can advocate for whole system change. The level of need in Lewisham is really staggering, but we are edging towards a system that has a consistent message and offer of support that is more equitable. I believe in proportionate universalism, in general practice, we need to have more resources so we can make the extra allowances for those that are most in need and are vulnerable to achieve the same health outcomes as those who are not vulnerable. There is a lack of consensus on the cohorts that we need to prioritise and funding to match the need and the proactive identification of at-risk groups such as this campaign is really vital so we can shift the dial on health inequalities. We must go further and link this to increased resourcing for areas of deprivation where significant amounts of funding are spent supporting families through issues such as homelessness. 

Siobhain:

Introduces Rebecca Dove, Headteacher. 

Rebecca Dove:

I am a Headteacher at one of the largest primary schools in Lewisham. I am also Chair of all the Lewisham headteachers, in something called the Leadership Forum. All the headteachers were feeling very stressed with the TA situation and for those families. We worked with Citizens UK and we managed to enlist the help of Will Cooper, our local councillor. In doing that, we realised that the GPs were feeling the exact same, so we now have a group where we meet with GPs and headteachers. We work hard together, but there is still such a long way to go. We have worked with Will on getting a directory to help us know who to go to and when. One of the biggest things, for us, when a child becomes homeless, it is very difficult to work out where in the homeless journey they are. We meet so many dead ends in trying to connect them to the right support. 

I was trying to get a family help when they became homeless that morning, and I hit 15 dead ends during the day, finally getting them accommodation at 10pm that night. It is knowing how to navigate the systems. This is really complicated. We have worked with Will on the directory and an escalation policy, with a much more direct route of getting to who we need to quickly. It has worked on a couple of occasions. 

The WiFi situation is horrendous for our families. As I have left to come here, I have left a parent who is in TA, in my office using the WiFi because she has to fill out her application for benefits. The impact that is having on school and the children’s schooling is huge. There is a huge amount of pressure on attendance, but we have families travelling in from Ilford. I have a dad who brings his child to school every day but it is so far away that he cannot work and cannot get home and back in time for pick-up. He is so desperate not to leave his school place because he feels safe and supported. That is the day-to-day reality of school. Ofsted wants us to get brilliant results and improve attendance, but what is going on on the ground makes it really difficult to do that. 

We offer lots of support to our families but we only know if they tell us. Some families are very private and are ashamed. I have a little girl that is only 5 years old, and she is on her 7th place. She doesn’t have books to read, they can’t physically move them between those places. I think, on the ground, the impact of TA on children and their families is colossal. We only hear, by accident, only by us being nosey and being at the gate in the morning, or them being late, or tired or hungry, is how we find out, then we do our level best to support them. It is then how we can best navigate the system as well as educating. It lands to the Head in primary education as there is no one else. 

Sam:

Update on the amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. There is space for an amendment in Clause 4 in relation to information sharing and the single unique identifier.
We have been rallying support from MPs for an amendment, as well as trying to get into the Department for Education to try to get the Minister to table the amendment. 

Introduces the video of the Housing Communities and Local Government evidence session with the Minister on the enquiry into Children in Temporary Accommodation. 

Siobhain: 

We need to write to Rushanara and to the Education Department because departments do not work well together. 

Opens the floor to comments and questions. 

Mike Reader MP:

Nutrition was a really interesting one for me. People talk about looking for children who are hungry, but Theo, you had the reverse experience?

Theo:

Things to do with environmental issues, I actually gained a huge amount of weight when living in TA because once my service charge and my immediate bills were covered, I had £2 left over at the end of each week. I lived exclusively on food donations that were compiled into the reception of the accommodation. It was things like takeaway foods and tinned foods with low nutritional value but very calorie-dense. You were encouraged to take much more food than you needed because the food would get thrown away if it wasn’t taken. This contributed to my tiredness, it does not help children with their concentration in school as they are not getting the vitamins they need. 

Stuff that goes to food banks is prioritised locally to make sure people do get some fruit, however, this is not always possible and a lot of the packages contain unhealthy food. 

Rebecca:

There is no fridge to keep fresh produce for families in TA, there is an emergency fund at school that helped to pay for a fridge for a family to buy fresh produce. 

Theo: 

Because I was on the payment meter, when it came to my electrics, I would often choose when to turn the fridge off, as that was the most expensive appliance, and also not to use the oven because you couldn’t really afford to. I had to make sure that everything was turned off as much as possible, so you’re not really cooking but living on things out of a packet that don’t need to be cooked. There was a charity that was run by a local Mosque that would bring around food once a week that was nutritional, but it was not sustainable. There were 60 young people living in this building living on takeaway food. It is not helpful for concentration at college. 

Fiona McLeod (online):

Outlined her and her son’s negative experience of trying to get help from school and mental health services while in TA. Her son’s education and mental health were severely impacted and he was only listened to when he reached crisis point. She asked what the response should be once services are notified. Is there going to be the backing of funding to support the services that we will notify to increase the capacity and resources for them? Does there need to be more training on the impacts of TA? In her borough, you are looking at 15 years in TA, if you’re lucky. What about those children that are spending their entire primary education in a hostel or B&B? Is there funding from the Government, not local councils, so that it isn’t this postcode competition as to where you get support and how long you spend in TA due to housing stocks in different areas? 

Siobhain:

We know that the campaigns we create are not the complete solutions to problems, but they are things we think we can achieve to make things better. 

One of the reasons that families are reluctant to inform services is because they are worried those services will be taken away. In some cases, they are not always wrong in assuming this. I am constantly fighting for support from service providers to stop this. 

Jane Cook (online):

Today, it has been 25 years since Victoria Climbie died and 3 years after Victoria’s death, Lord Laeing launched the review with 108 recommendations and one of them was the notification system. I am thrilled to see this campaign is still ongoing. We had the NOTIFY system in London but this took several years for several of the councils to sign up to it and now it doesn’t function. I know from my health visitor colleagues, they often find families just by chance. Maybe going into a hotel, suddenly a family appears at a clinic, and that is the first they know about a family in their catchment area. It is a huge safeguarding issue, as well as health. 

When I talk about family hubs, we need a Magpie Project in every ICB. The Government is talking about family hubs pilots, and that is just a recreation of Sure Start. 

Sustainable funding for all of this is needed, Lisa Gavern in Surrey with a multidisciplinary team so that we are not only notifying but ensuring that they are being practically responded to. Campaigns about access to kitchens so it is the whole package that needs to come together. The standards of accommodation or people being in a hotel room for over a year, as well as constant moves. It is time for change so I am excited to see this campaign being launched. 

Siobhain:

My friend and health visitor in my constituency relies on watching delivery men around hostels and hotels to see if a family has moved in to be able to find the children. 

Helena Dollimore MP:

I represent Hastings and Rye, we have the highest number of children who live in TA in the South East anywhere outside of London. This is an issue we have been very aware of for some time, but when Shelter was able to put those figures together of that stat, 1 in 27 children in Hastings living in TA, it’s really helped us push the issue onto the agenda. I would really urge colleagues to think about, we all know the issues of TA, how can we as much as possible put this out into the public domain? The recent media coverage you had was really powerful and a step in the right direction, we need to think about how to do that more. 

I have a lot of people who are moved into TA in Hastings from somewhere else. I wondered if we have any statistics on numbers of children moved to areas from elsewhere, am I able to ask for this as the MP? 

Also, the stories of children in TA are very powerful, when we all as MPs deal with different decisions that come before planning committees and projects for building new homes when there is a good case for them to be put through, I often think that if every planning committee had been sent a letter by a child living in TA, they might think differently. 

Siobhain:

We should know how many children have been moved to the area, as councils should be notifying the receiving council when they place anyone there as it is a requirement of the Code of Guidance. The questions are are the councils doing it and are the housing department in the council in Hastings seeing them?

Sam:

There is no way to code for TA in the NHS so we have no data on accidents or illnesses. Go and ask your ICB how many kids in TA attended your local A&E this year, they won’t have that data because we don’t write it down. Same for education also. The more data we have, the more work we can do. 

Aaminah:

One of the things about asking what’s next, is how can we link this up with other Government strategies? Such as with the NHS 10-year forward plan and the prevention, community-based care and if we make TA and homelessness a priority of who are the people who health and housing and education need to be supporting, there is a real impact on having the cross-departmental and how do we support the different services? In our local ICS, we are trying to push for a population health management system to identify the most vulnerable cohorts. This includes data sharing between local councils, health and education. We need to think of this as a ‘no wrong front door’, if someone comes to a service asking for help then they need to be identified as vulnerable and provided with wrap-around support. What are the other APPGs that you could be synergising with? 

Siobhain:

Perhaps, we should contact the relevant health ministers to invite them to a meeting?

Sam:

We have invited them, and have had no response. 

A question from the room:

As a retired GP, working in Lewisham, is any research being done in this area? It does seem so incredibly key that we don’t know where the children are coming from and how long they are staying. Which boroughs are sending them? Are people being notified? That wouldn’t be that difficult to do. 

Sam:

The most recent research is, Inside Housing did a load of FOIs around how many children by age group and where they were placed last year, but that was FOI requests rather than a full research project or being able to have the data to pull and analyse the data. In answer to your question, no. 

Siobhain: 

The exponential rise of TA usage in London has meant that more and more people are talking about it and trying to get somewhere, so in my own council, which is Merton, I got all the departments together to say ‘What are we going to do and how are we going to ensure that a child dependent on special needs transport who gets moved out of the borough doesn’t lose it straight away?’. I’ve been in contact with local government bodies to try and talk about it but people are very protective and don’t necessarily want to tell others what they are doing because they are just trying to get by. But there is greater pressure to be much more transparent about the figures. 

Dilraj Kaur (online): 

Similar to GPs in Peterborough Citizens UK, we have been attempting to work with local councils to inform schools which children are homeless and placing a box on the form for councils to inform schools. Unfortunately, it is not mandated so this has proven difficult. We have had students given detention for coming into school with incorrect uniform as they are in TA and have no access to washing machines, only to find out they are homeless and have no access to free school meals. 

Locally we ran a campaign with headteachers in Peterborough for a notification system and we won 3 years ago with the local council. It was hard as there were issues with GDPR. Unfortunately, they put this on another form and only 3.6% of schools were informed about children declared as homeless. How can we learn from this situation?

In addition, can we ensure children automatically have free school meals when and if the notification is approved?

Rebecca:

Lewisham has been trialling a campaign for free school meals for notifying sources. Parents do not have to apply anymore for free school meals, it’s an opt-out system, meaning the level of children eligible has increased. We had a 15% rise in the amount of children eligible. There are systems there that can work if something similar could be done for housing. 

Siobhain: 

Final remarks and thanks. 

Meeting concluded at 5pm.

7th All-Party Parliamentary Group for Households in Temporary Accommodation meeting.

Date: 30/10/2024
Time: 15.00-16.00
Location: Room T, Portcullis House

Joint Secretariats: Shared Health Foundation (SHF) and Justlife (JL)

Attendees in person:
Dame Siobhain McDonagh MP (Mitchem & Morden, Labour), Sam Pratt (SHF), Ian  Swift (Islington Council), Paula Barker MP (Liverpool Wavertree, Labour), James Asser MP (West Ham and Beckton, Labour), Margaret Mullane MP (Dagenham and Rainham, Labour), Ken Jones (Parliamentary Assistant, Margaret Mullane MP), Josh Babarinde MP (Eastbourne, Liberal Democrat), Morgan Tebbs (Justlife), Isabel Kaner (SHF), Caleb Neilson (SHF)

Number of attendees online: 50

Panellists:
Sam Pratt, Policy and Communications Lead, Shared Health Foundation
Dr Laura Neilson, CEO, Shared Health Foundation (pre-recorded)
Ian Swift, Director of Housing, Islington Council

Agenda:
3pm. Introductions from Siobhain McDonagh MP, Chair
3:05pm. Why do we need a Notification System for Homeless Families, Sam Pratt
3:15pm What can the NHS do to support children in Temporary Accommodation? Dr Laura Neilson
3:20pm How has Islington approached a notification system? Ian Swift
3:25pm Comments and questions from MPs and Zoom attendees
3:40pm Update on the Renters Rights Bill
3:45pm Final words and actions from Chair

Meeting 

Chair of the APPG, Siobhain McDonagh (SM), opened the meeting and introduced the topic of discussion being the need for a Notification System where families are placed in temporary accommodation outside their home borough. She highlighted that currently, only a few councils are using a notification system at all. The Chair introduced the first speaker, Sam Pratt (SP), Policy and Communications Lead, Shared Health Foundation.

SP provided an overview of the need for a seamless Notification System for Homeless Families.

• Currently, there is no one seamless system that local authorities use to notify schools, GPs and Primary Care of a child’s new homelessness situation. 

• • The Local Government Association has written a good out-of-borough protocol, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority has recently approved an out-of-borough protocol but none of them mention schools or health, when surely these are the most important services in a child’s life.
  • We are also aware of Notify in London and the duty that LAs have for S201 notifications, which is the legal obligation that councils have to tell each other when placing a homeless household in their borough, but we know that these are not routinely done. 

• No one knows the whereabouts of these children apart from the overworked, over-stressed housing officer. This leaves families and children in an area they don’t know, away from school and their health services and ultimately they fall through the gaps. This includes Primary Care, Secondary Care, Health Visitors and community midwives.

• • Homelessness for some can come with a badge of shame and alongside a fear of social services getting involved, it can stop families from telling anyone that they are homeless.

• SP shared a story from a Greater Manchester family that the Shared Health Foundation has worked with. In the story, a mum shares her experience breaking down in the reception area of her children’s school and the staff being supportive of their homelessness situation. She then had to move her children to a school closer to where the family had been placed, and the new school provided no support. SP noted that the Notification System should be a consistent approach and no matter where families are placed in the country, they would receive the same amount of equitable care.

• Sharing positive examples of best practice, SP highlighted Rochdale’s Housing Team trialling this exact Notification System for around a year with real successes in educational outcomes, as well as Manchester City Council just starting to notify schools – a huge step for such a large local authority with massive financial pressures. It’s easy for some local authorities to ignore this kind of innovative work but we’re really proud that some have started already.

• This isn’t about money, this isn’t about systems and policies. It’s actually about leadership. It’s about brave leadership of all levels, locally, regionally and nationally, to say we can do better for our families. And we should start now.

Dr Laura Neilson (LN), CEO, Shared Health Foundation (pre-recorded).

LN provided an overview of what the NHS can do to support children in temporary Accommodation.

• We know from our research that many professionals want to help children living in temporary accommodation, if only they knew. 
• We’ve written some guidance to be published alongside the APPG material about how do GPs respond when they get these notifications.
• The first thing we’re asking for is for the family to stay on the GP list for a short amount of time, even if they are out of area, to enable continuity of care to be prioritised.
• Secondly, we’re asking for GPs to consider the health needs of this family, to make sure that regular medication, regular checkups are offered, and that we actively outreach to these families regarding immunisations and screening.
• Thirdly, we’re asking GPs to be mindful that if families are moving areas or arriving into a new GP Practice and they’re living in temporary accommodation, that this is coded and particular care is made about referrals. So if a child was referred to a hospital and they’ve moved areas and the referral needs to be remade, that it’s made into the system and the child doesn’t start at the bottom of the waiting list again.
• Despite the quite high levels of infant mortality that we see in this group of children, it hasn’t really been picked up as a health issue yet and that is disappointing. NHS colleagues have been invited to come to our meetings but they haven’t yet attended. We’d like to see that change.
• We don’t know about accident or admission data for these children but we suspect from anecdotal evidence and case studies that it is higher in this group of children than other children. But at the moment the NHS does not collect this data because we do not ask routinely when children attend A&E whether they’re living in temporary accommodation. We would like to see the NHS talk with us about how do we better gather the evidence around health and these children.
• We also want to work with NHS colleagues to stop this pattern that we’re seeing of children being referred into hospital in a new area and starting again at the bottom of the waiting lists. We’ve got lots of case studies of children never, ever making it to the top of the waiting list and still waiting to be assessed and diagnosed with medical issues.
• We’d like this group of children to be tracked through the NHS Pathways.
• We also want to work with the NHS widely about supporting mums in temporary accommodation. We know that a lot of mums struggle to access basic services they need, such as contraception, mental health support and basic access for acute illnesses.

Ian Swift (IS),  Director of Housing, Islington Council.

IS provided an overview of how Islington Council have approached a Notification System.

• Islington Council have produced a Housing and Children Services Protocol and that changed in light of them notifying doctors and schools, etc. The Protocol was approved by the Housing Scrutiny Committee this month, it’s going to Children’s Scrutiny Committee next month, and hopefully it will be approved and rolled out, notifying GPs and schools of people living in temporary accommodation.
• 50% of homeless households live in Islington. 45% live in neighbouring boroughs, and 5% live in other parts of London or on the outskirts of Northern London. 
• IS highlighted the 1432 children and 1600 households living in temporary accommodation in Islington. He noted that data capture is chaotic. The council provides data on a monthly basis to London councils, on how many people are in temporary accommodation, the cost and everything. Officers provide daily data to the Ministry of Housing through H-CLIC. However, that information is only published 6 months after the event, so that is a real problem when governments or councils are trying to plan their service provision.
• Officers sometimes forget to use Notify and that’s not what is appropriate. There isn’t really a compulsion to populate Notify like there is to populate H-CLIC. 
• Councils have to provide data monthly to the Ministry of Housing, regarding rough sleeping, through a system called DELTA and are supposed to monitor another system by the GLA called CHAIN for rough sleeping. Islington Council also gets weekly Freedom of Information Requests from various boroughs outside of London. IS noted that it is obvious from this plethora of data why an Officer would forget to submit something to Notify. 
• IS highlighted the need for only one system and that one system can be H-CLIC, as it is compulsory for all councils. It could bounce information not just to the Ministry of Housing, but notify other councils, Health services, and the GP Federation. The system is possible, it really is, and we just need to have one system that populates everything.
• IS noted that Islington Council supports and recognises the criticism from this APPG in terms of why they didn’t notify GPs, schools and hospitals of people living in that area, and that is a mistake. Now they do, they have rectified it through the revised Protocol.

Questions

SM opened the panel for Q&A:

Q1:

Paula Barker MP Would it be possible for you (IS) to share your information that’s gone to your Housing and Social Services Department? I think that would be something that would be hugely helpful to Liverpool City Council.

IS Yes, of course.

Q2:

SM Sam, is the idea that we will have a campaign about this, in the way that in the last Parliament, this APPG had a campaign on amending the Code of Guidance to include access to a cot for families with children under 2? If so, would we ask the Department for Housing in Local Government, or would we write to the Local Government Association?

SP The plan is, with the consensus of the members of the APPG, that we would run a campaign on the back of this to have a National Notification System. And when we call it a “system”, we use “system” in the very loosest terms, it is just one email from the Housing Officers to the school and the GPs. We want to do a national campaign and to ask the Department but then also the Local Government Association, because they’ve already got a really good out-of-borough protocol, it just doesn’t have anything about kids, school and GPs in there. 

Q3:

James Asser MP (JA) The notification is really important but actually there has to be consistency. One of the things I have found as a Councillor is I would get people coming to me with problems and find they weren’t a new tenant, they were placed from somewhere else in London. And whilst you can go to your own Housing Department, when you’re starting to deal with other boroughs, it starts to get complicated, things get lost. I think some kind of national campaign to try and get consistency would help. 

Q4:

Margaret Mullane MP (MM) I wanted to ask Sam about a bit more clarity. If we’re going to do a campaign with the National Health Service, what would it look like? I’m just thinking about how overworked the hospitals are as people appear with their children as well. 

SP To start off, we need to get the NHS around the table. Unfortunately, we’ve invited them to every APPG meeting we’ve done and they’ve never turned up. We want to run a campaign for having a consistent Notification System so that everyone is notified. But then also, as Laura said in her video, the NHS doesn’t code for temporary accommodation at all. And all that is, is just adding an extra bit of layer, it’s a spreadsheet issue. But it’s actually getting the right people around the table to decide that this is a thing that they want to do. 

Q5:

MM With your case study as well, the parents and the children can suffer mental health as a result of being in temporary accommodation. I wonder what that notification looks like? Because it’s incredibly difficult for even MPs to escalate when things are bad.

SP Absolutely, and we know that local NHS and Mental Health Services are incredibly stretched at the moment. In terms of how does the NHS even treat temporary accommodation as a thing, that isn’t a case at the moment. Our little organisation, we’ve got a Clinical Psychologist that works in a GP Practice that works with families in temporary accommodation to do that holding space: when families are in the crisis period, when they’re in the complexity of TA, what do we do now to make the next best decision? Do we then roll that out across lots of other GP Practices? Do we work with the local Primary Care Networks on that? There’s lots of extra really great best practice that does exist but actually doesn’t have the support and network and funding to go, “We are tackling temporary accommodation, this is what we’re doing to support the kids in there.”

Q6:

Morgan Tebbs (MT) Ian, you mentioned that Housing Officers aren’t always consistent with notifying Health and Education services when a homeless household moves in. Do we think then that it might be a bit ambitious to expand the Notification System and include other kinds of services, maybe trusted third-sector services, or other core services? Do you think they should be included?

IS I think the problem is the amount of notifications we’ve got to do through the different systems. Homelessness is increasing. In Islington, it’s increased 35% in the last 12 months. The average person’s staying in Islington in temporary accommodation 64 weeks. I think the average in Newham is between 5-10 years from the data that they’re publishing. You’re likely to have a child in Newham going through Junior and Secondary school before they actually come out. For that school not to be aware that that person’s real connection’s back with Islington, is appalling. So I’m just asking for one system to populate.

Q7:

Online  It is vital that this happens, especially having over 151,000 children who are homeless. This should be a crisis and NHS really needs to respond to this. I really welcome this.

Q8:

Online Do families have to opt in for schools and GPs to be notified, first of all, and can they opt out? There was mention of children not losing their position on health waiting lists, and I support the idea as well of mental health waiting lists. Would this also apply to children not losing places for assessments or support on Education, Health and Care Plan assessments?

SP  This is an opt-in notification from the family, so the Housing Officer would work with the family and explain. It’s a nuanced thing of going, “We want to inform the GP and the school around this, are you with that?” And they would CC the family into the email to the school and the GP as well, so it’s all done under consent. And yes, they can opt out, we’re not going to force a notification if they don’t want to, families still have that right to their privacy.
In terms of families going off different lists, in terms of EHCP plans, we see that as well up in Greater Manchester. Any kind of list that a child might be on does get dropped when they get moved into temporary accommodation, across the board of any kind of support service.

Q9:

Online I just wanted to mention things that I think might be helpful in piggybacking on what’s currently happening. The Child Poverty Strategy was launched late last week and I think that would be a really good opportunity to address some of the strategies that the government’s outlined already. I think what you’re advocating for fits beautifully with what that strategy is looking to help and shape. The other thing is, I will help you make contact with colleagues within NHS England who work around Inclusion Health Groups. I think that there is a willing population out there to help support you.

Q10:

Online Going back to the NHS having a Notification System, when the families are presenting at A&E as victims of domestic violence and children, I think the Police need to be involved in this. I’m wondering if the Domestic Abuse Commissioner would be a good way of raising the profile and stimulating some collaboration with the NHS and the Police which may be of assistance.

Q11:

Ken Jones I listened very carefully to Ian’s points and I would recognise very much that point about Notify and it not really being a system which is fully in use from authorities. I think probably the most useful point would be to, as Ian suggested in terms of H-CLIC for MHCLG, to ensure that that was then forwarded to schools, NHS, Police, that contact to be made. Also, one further point to reinforce that, the updated Homelessness Code of Guidance, which does place a responsibility on local authorities within 14 days to notify the host authority, then that needs to be changed as well, to make that very clear that it goes beyond the local authority to those other organisations as well. 

Q12:

Josh Babarinde MP (JB) It seems to be a win-win, such a system existing. What have been the barriers to something like this being adopted and implemented? 

SP From working with boroughs in Greater Manchester, the will is there. There were a few conversations around GDPR, in terms of “We can’t possibly share this information”, and that was a flat “no”. But we were wanting it to be an opting system for the families as well.
There’s a few technical issues of how to fit it in, but also councils are so stretched and so overworked, and it’s expensive, and a lot of the accommodation is poor, and I guess in terms of priorities from different councils it’s like “We’ll do the notification another time.” It always seems to be dropped down.
It takes some brave leadership, which it has done, and unfortunately it’s taken us quite a while for Greater Manchester to move up quite slowly, but it has moved. They can be at the forefront of going, “Look, we tried it. Yes, it was a bit tricky. Let’s talk about all the technical stuff of how you actually make the notification.” If you’ve got families coming in every day and you’ve got the system set up, it’s actually relatively easy once it’s all up and running. Like I said before, it’s about leadership as opposed to about technical systems and money. We can make this done tomorrow and it is just an email.

SM I’m a bit more cynical. I think lots of local authorities don’t want people to know what they’re doing. I think if you don’t acknowledge it, then your members don’t know about it so you just do things to survive. People are placed in shocking accommodation in shocking locations, and to have to fess up to this causes you grief with your members but also exposes the whole issue far wider than that. I think a lot of this system stays afloat on a lack of awareness. Part of our long-term conversation has been that in local authorities, as you know, you have Ofsted looking at your schools, you have Ofsted looking at your Social Services, but no oversight looking at what your council does with half its money. It’s been an unofficial policy of this APPG to support the introduction of a regulator, Ofsted-style regulator, to be able to come into local authorities and say, “Is this council obeying the Code of Guidance, or mindful of the Code of Guidance?” And you can be absolutely sure that if a regulator came into being tomorrow, all this would happen. The forms would get sent out, councils will be notified, and if the Guidance had GPs and schools, that would happen. But because nobody’s watching, all sorts of bad practice happen. Does anybody think I’m being unfair?

JA agreed with the Chair and provided an example from Newham’s recent Housing Inspection with the worst rating ever given, the findings of which no one seemed to know about and would not have been politically acceptable.

JB suggested that the motivations for the non-adoption of a Notification System so far should inform whatever this campaign is or isn’t. He clarified that if it were technological reasons getting in the way, the work of the APPG would be to speak to technologists to come up with a piece of technology that can then be marketed to local authorities to adopt. However if the political leadership don’t feel ready to face up to the realities of their temporary accommodation situation, that’s a different kind of campaign and no amount of saying “You should have a Notification System because it’s the right thing” would pull the right levers to get that done.

SP highlighted that the Shared Health Foundation have written Guidance for Primary Care and schools on how to support homeless families, if any councils would like to give it a go. He clarified that a lot of the time schools and Primary Care are so willing to help and support but don’t know what to do. Sharing the Guidance with everyone will go on the back of the APPG’s campaign.

SM made a suggestion to ask Karin Smyth MP, Public Health Minister, to come to the APPG’s next meeting, as directional influence from her would get the NHS involved and this is a Public Health issue. She also suggests inviting the relevant Minster from the Department of Education, as well as the relevant Homelessness Minister.

IS shared that regarding the issue in terms of regulation, Islington Council have been supporting the Regulator of Social Housing and have done a pilot inspection over 12 months ago. He pointed that they could inspect 50% of their homeless cases because they were in council-owned accommodation but the other 50% they couldn’t do anything about, and that was appalling as they were the ones that in theory were the worst form of accommodation. He said that IT is equally as important as regulation in terms of lobbying.

SM guided the conversation toward an update on the Renters Rights Bill, provided by MT.

• We have some concerns as to how far the Bill will apply to temporary accommodation.
• Legislation doesn’t apply the Decent Home Standard (DHS) to privately provided temporary accommodation and we would like it to. It’s in Committee stage at the moment and we are working with MPs who sit on the Committee to try and make those amendments that would explicitly apply the DHS to temporary accommodation.
• The APPG will submit written evidence to support the amendments that we would like to see.

Meeting concluded at 4pm.

AGM of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Households in Temporary Accommodation.

Date: 23/4/24
Time: 14.00-14.30
Location: Room W2, Westminster House

Co-Secretariats: Shared Health Foundation (SHF) and Justlife Foundation (JL)

Attendees in Person:

Sam Pratt (SHF), Grace Bute (SHF), Morgan Tebbs (Justlife) Siobhain McDonagh MP (Labour, Chair), Rebecca Long-Bailey MP (Labour) Bob Blackman MP (Conservative), Karen Buck MP (Labour), Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Labour), Lord Richard Best (Crossbench), Andrew Western MP (Labour), Eddie Hughes MP (Conservative), Natalie Elphicke MP (Conservative), Paula Barker MP (Labour), The Lord Bishop of Manchester (Bishops)

Independent Chair: 

Hannah Bardell MP (SNP)

Agenda: 

To vote on re-electing existing officers to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Households in Temporary Accommodation. 

Meeting: 

Independent Chair Hannah Bardell led the meeting with the following: 

• Highlighting the agenda for the meeting
• Provided vote for Siobhain McDonagh to continue as Registered Chair of the APPG
• Provided vote for Rebecca Long-Bailey, Karen Buck and Bob Blackman for their roles as Officers of the APPG
• Provided vote for Shared Health Foundation and Justlife Foundation to continue role as co-secretariats of the APPG
• Annual reports approved
• Due Diligence statement approved  

Participants of the meeting voted in agreement on the above votes.

The meeting was concluded at 14:10

Households in Temporary Accommodation All Party Parliamentary Group Annual Report 2023

APPG Temporary Accommodation – Due Diligence – 2024

APPG Temporary Accommodation – Income and Expenditure – 2024

6th All-Party Parliamentary Group for Households in Temporary Accommodation.

Date: 22/11/2023
Time: 16.00-17.00
Location: Room M, Portcullis House

Joint Secretariats: Shared Health Foundation (SHF) and Justlife (JL)

Attendees:
Rebecca Long-Bailey MP (Salford & Eccles, Labour), Sam Pratt (SHF), Laura Edwards and Chris Dabbs (Unlimited Potential), Debbie Blackburn (Salford City Council), Martyn Hague (ForHousing), and Members of the Salford Co-production Project (Unlimited Potential).

Number of attendees online: 45

Purpose:

To introduce the Salford Co-production group and their Good Homes presentation. Funded by Public Health on behalf of the Salford’s Health & Wellbeing Board, the Co-production group brings together the local people of Salford and senior professionals to work collaboratively to improve the lives of their communities. The Good Homes project is delivered by Unlimited Potential and aims to provide useful information for young people and families navigating the homeless journey.

Meeting

Rebecca Long-Bailey MP (Vice Chair) opened the meeting at 4pm.

Laura Edwards

Project Co-ordinator for Unlimited Potential:

• The Salford co-production project is funded by health and wellbeing board at Public Health Salford City Council because it was deemed necessary to reduce health inequalities that were greatest in Salford.
• Previous attempts to solve the issue did not work.
• Co-production is a helpful tool that can bring:
• 1. Depth of understanding into an issue that only comes with lived experience.
• 2. Knowledge as well as the ability to make the change that only senior professionals can make.
  3. Passion and commitment to make a difference.
• Co-production is about sharing power. Bringing local people and local decision makers together in the same room as equals.
• As it is a different way of working, the solutions are often innovative, such as this magazine on Good Homes.

Salford Co-production group

15 members of the group presented the Good Homes magazine, with some sharing their lived experience of navigating homelessness from a young age.

Shaquille:

• Process of being involved has been very exciting and a real opportunity to make the places we live in better.
• Me and Laura met at a community centre where it was explained what the co-production was about.
• Laura also met members of the group, in young carers, young parents and coffee shops.

Debbie Blackburn from Salford City Council:

• Co-production has changed the way we work with our residents, changing policies that are in line with the needs of our population.
• This has given us the perspective on how we look at the wider determinants of health.
• Work and good homes are our hierarchy of need. We need to co-produce these needs with our residents to get the basic principles right and reduce the health inequalities in our city.

Jordan:

• A good homes approach would reduce pressure on Temporary Accommodation by helping families early on.
• Most of us have lived in TA during a difficult time with our families. If the right help was provided to our families, it would have likely prevented us from further homelessness, giving us a good home.
• As young people thinking about our own lives, we felt a priority had to be about homes. Most of us have been homeless and living in TA and we don’t want others to go through what we have. Homes are about stability and security.
• This is why we want a good homes strategy, not housing.
• We worked with a service designer to create a model of what a good home means.

(Copies of model shared amongst members of the meeting).

Chris Dabbs from Unlimited Potential:

• The magazine produced is a short-term solution, and the model that has just been shared is the basis of a long-term strategy on how we plan to address this issue.
• This isn’t just about housing, bricks, and mortar. This is about how we can support people to create a home.
• Children most importantly, need stability and security in where they live.
• If we can create homes and support people to have homes, with the implication of agencies such as children’s services, social services, and housing services together, then we can prevent health inequalities.
• This is why we want to put the emphasis on homes, not housing.

Olivia:

• We initially grouped together because there wasn’t many resources or information about how to run a home, so we co-designed the Good Homes magazine and made it accessible to all.
• As most of us have come from TA or the care system, we all struggled when moving into to our new homes. For example, when I moved into my own house, I found it hard to get in contact with the right people to help with maintenance repairs that were needed in the property. As I had just turned 18, with a newborn, this made me feel isolated and down. I know that if I had this magazine, it would’ve have helped me out of that situation massively.
• This magazine has been handed out to TAs, Housing associations and local community organisations. Greater Manchester Authorities are also looking to print copies of it.
• We made it for Salford, but this magazine is not just for Salford, it is for everyone who needs it.

Martyn Hague (ForHousing):

• We, as housing professionals, also find the housing system confusing. This magazine covers that and tries to explain the system in simpler language.
• Not everyone knows who to speak to when an issue arises, so we got access to roles across all services in housing associations and interviewed them.
• We asked them to explain their roles and what support they could provide, as well as advise on how people could get that support.

MJ:

• A lot of people who have lived or are living in TA have felt lonely, anxious and/or confused. These feelings topple with our own past traumas and make the whole experience daunting and negative to look back on.
• Having support for people during these challenging moments in their lives would be essential to the wellbeing of the residents. Most common problem we experience is isolation, relationship break downs, being moved into housing in areas we are not familiar with, and lack of support.
• Lack of maintenance and standards of care for the places we are staying in are a huge problem. Because the accommodation is Temporary, the issues do not get resolved quickly.
• Moving out at such a young age, lacking the knowledge and skills of housing, cooking, and managing bills without support, can leave you in a constant cycle of struggle. This can set you up for failure.
• TA should not equal temporary support.

Ellie:

• Often people come to TA feeling isolated and alone.
• It is paramount that TA organisations have resources in place to support the tenant and help them socialise with other people in similar situations.
• In terms of finding employment while in TA, continued support at getting a full-time job is needed.
• Universal credit should not decrease and rent increase as soon as tenant gets a full-time job. This makes it difficult for the tenant to make enough to pay for their rent, bills, and food every month.
• To prevent recurrence of these situations, a phased approach to rent increases in line with living wage would be an appropriate solution.
• We would like to know how you can incorporate that into your manifestos.

Debbie Blackburn from Salford City Council:

• We need to commission services that deliver a meaningful experience. Engage with the lived experiences, support them, and give them the tools to be independent and resilient.
• Support should not end at 25.
• We must tailor services to support people with Adverse Childhood Experiences, and neurodivergence and help children get the best experience during their homeless journey.

Rebecca Long-Bailey MP

Gives thanks to the Salford Co-production group for their presentation, courage, and passion for making change within their communities. Rebecca Long-Bailey MP then proceeds to open the Q&A.

Q&A

RLB: What spurred you on to come together and demand for change?

Ellie: Laura brought us all together with our different experiences. We all had a mutual feeling that systems needed to change which ignited that fire to make the change ourselves. The more we came together to discuss it the more real it became. Making the magazine and being here only inspires more to make a difference in our communities.

Danny: When Laura first found me, I was in the young parents group. I had two little girls and with all that I had been through in life, I could never imagine my kids going through that. My main motivation was to make things better so that my kids would have a life they deserve.

MJ: It helped that we were also getting paid to work together – it made us feel that we were being taken seriously.

Danny: The support with transport was also very helpful in getting us to and from the place. For example, we would be supplied with bus passes if the meeting was quite far to get to.

RLB: What would you like to see in the Labour party manifesto? What change would you like to see?

Danny: To make access with Salford home search accessible for those who are homeless. For example, I was unable to create an account to search for a council property when I was homeless because I did not have an address. How are you supposed to have an address if you are homeless? This forced me to go to the Private Rented Sector (PRS) which then meant I was unable to get council property. I am stuck paying extortionate prices to prevent homelessness again.

Ellie: Introduce a phased approach to the rent increases when in full-time employment and living in TA. Without that it forces you into a never-ending cycle where you stay stuck in a poorly maintained accommodation. A support network is also crucial.

Julia: Making resources such as this magazine more available. Making sure anyone can access the information in an easy-to-understand format can grant people the support they need. Knowledge is key.

Danny: I am a big believer that schools do not teach you the basic life skills that you get thrown into at a young age. The information available is unhelpful and full of jargon. Better support and clearer information would be beneficial.

Debbie Blackburn from Salford City Council: Organisations need to be trauma responsive when supporting residents in TA which includes the language used. There are many young people entering homelessness who are neurodivergent and/or suffering from trauma, who are left unsupported and isolated. The language used can trigger trauma which can lead to more oppression.

Jane (Online): I am interested to hear what the young people think are important to make a place a home rather than just a house and did you see TA as a home?

MJ: We believe being a good home requires:

1. Being ingrained into the community.
2. Living near green spaces with places to walk and exercise.
3. Having good transport links.
4. Support from housing provider.
5. Maintenance.

Danny: Knowing you can wake up the next morning without having to worry about how to get your next meal, whether you can afford your gas and/or electric and living in a good area and feeling comfortable where you are.

Julia: Little things can make a house a home. A place where you can call a space your own and decorate it with things that you like to make you feel more settled and safer in your own space.

Ellie: I believe having a safe and secure place, where the property is well maintained is most important. It doesn’t matter how much you decorate it, if you don’t feel safe, you can’t call it a home.

RLB: What can we do now as an APPG, to help you realise the potential you have, to make the change needed for our societies? It could be helping you to write to each political party a set of demands on their manifestos, or doing something more locally in your area and encouraging other areas to follow.

MJ:

1. Spread the word.
2. Informing people in your own communities and creating communities to voice out change.

Danny: Setting up similar strategies like in Salford in other places to help those most vulnerable get the support that they need.

Ellie: The magazine is a great baseline that is not only reserved for residents of Salford but for whoever needs it. Spreading the word and talking to your MPs will help materialise change.

Brenda (Online): You mention that more support for your family was needed before entering homelessness. What would that support look like?

Danny: It comes down to the parents themselves and what support they’re willing to offer to the young person. However, I found there is no real support for domestic issues for families. This can be very detrimental for a young person.

Ellie: Ensuring that there is a nurturing environment for the child that can be found via a support network rather than support workers. I would also recommend having building blocks of how to live independently as you grow up without having to fend for yourself.

Jordan: Support on providing knowledge would be very helpful for a young person. Some parents could pass on knowledge to their and other children on housing.

Rebecca Long-Bailey MP

Proposes the APPG to write a letter to the Prime Minister and party leaders with the list of the Co-production’s group demands to highlight the changes needed to help support those navigating the homeless journey.

RLB then concluded the meeting.

Meeting was concluded at 15:50.

5th All-Party Parliamentary Group for Households in Temporary Accommodation.

Monday 17/10/2023, 15.00-15.50, hybrid meeting
Room C, 1 Parliament St.

Joint Secretariats: Shared Health Foundation (SHF) and Justlife (JL)

Attendees:
Siobhain McDonagh MP (Mitchem & Morden, Labour), Rebecca Long-Bailey MP (Salford & Eccles, Labour) Felicity Buchan MP (Parliamentary Under Secretary of state, Housing and Homelessness), Dr Mel Nowicki (Oxford Brookes University), Professor Katherine Brickell (King’s College London), Irhaa (Lived experience), Christine Arkam (Expert witness), Sam Pratt (SHF), Fran Anderson (Justlife), Jo Spurling (SHF), Sam Khan (Siobhain McDonagh MP), Caleb Neilson (SHF).

Number of attendees online: 20

Purpose:

To discuss findings from the recently published report ‘Debt Trap’, written by Professor Katherine Brickell and Dr Mel Nowicki. The report reveals how debt is a major factor in why families become homeless, how it worsens during their time living in Temporary Accommodation (TA), and then continues to impact on families even when their homelessness ends.
https://sharedhealthfoundation.org.uk/publications/the-debt-trap-report/

Meeting

Dr Mel Nowicki

Reader in Urban Geography at Oxford Brookes University and co-author of the report ‘Debt Trap (2023)’ begins the meeting by highlighted the findings from the report:

• Debt is a major factor why families become homeless, it worsens during stays in TA and then continues to impact on families’ futures even when homelessness ends.
• Rent arrears are leading cause of homelessness. Many women we interviewed were economically controlled, forced to rely on credit for everyday expenses, and in some cases enrolled into coerced debt.
• Many describe these debts as another form of punishment that follows them, even after they leave their abusive partners.
• Later still, when some women have needed to flee again, after being found by their abusers are hit with more rent and council tax arrears as they had to move quickly. In short, domestic violence feeds a debt trap.
• Living in TA can negatively impact homeless families contributing towards their debt and a life of uncertainty. Stays in TA should be short, safe and healthy as possible however, the research shows that the key barriers to this are the rent arrears which inhibit families’ transition into permanent or social housing. Applicants in rent arrears can become ineligible to bid for homes or lose prioritisation on housing.
• Women and children remain stuck in TA until they clear or reduce their debt to a certain level – or show their ‘intent to pay’ through consecutive repayments (rules are contingent on local authority).
• Stays in TA also increase debt burden. For example, due to difficulties in procuring TA, homeless families are often moved miles away from their existing support networks and schools. Taking children to school often produces high expenses of up to £280 in transport per month. Additionally, those living in hotels or B&Bs lack basic cooking facilities such as a microwave and/or even a kettle, pushing homeless families to spend huge amounts of their income on takeaways to starve off hunger.
• The rising cost-of-living, credit used to pay for transporting and purchasing household goods between each move, including the repeated errors in Universal credit and council tax calculations adds additional financial burdens on homeless families and increases their debt.
• Inflexible and costly childcare also increases debt burden.
• Even when families are allocated to permanent residency, it is often of substandard quality, meaning debts are accrued further in order to make the accommodation liveable (e.g. paying for carpets).
• Incurring debt therefore becomes a necessity for survival during their homelessness journey.
• While these individual debts ae generally small and negligible in purely financial terms, the research shows the disproportionate and negative impact they are having on the lives of women and children in these predicaments.
• Solution: Scrap rules on outstanding housing-related debt determining property bidding eligibility.
• Other recommendations outlined in the ‘Debt Trap (2023)’ report.

Irhaa (lived experience voice) with Professor Katherine Brickell

Irhaa, in conversation with Professor Katherine Brickell, shares her lived experiences of navigating domestic violence. Homelessness and debt as a mother.

Professor Katherine Brickell asks: Can you tell me a bit about your story?

Irhaa states:

• Experienced domestic violence for 13 years, ever since the start of my marriage, both from husband and mother-in-law.
• Husband kept my carers allowance from me, and I had very little access to money, which he controlled.
• One of the reasons why I always put up with the domestic abuse was, I used to think, ‘How am I going to do it with the four kids financially?’
• Emotional abuse developed into physical abuse, and I was almost killed.
• I had to leave with nothing.
• Lived in a hotel for 5 weeks with children before being moved to other temporary accommodation – but it had rats, huge cracks, it was dirty, and the garden was full of rubbish.
• After six months, received permanent housing, but again in a poor state of repair, and required credit card borrowing to buy furniture and lay carpet – you cannot just have children on a bare floor.

Professor Katherine Brickell asks: What impact has debt had on you since?

• Debt has been one of my biggest worries, I couldn’t get back on my feet – making the sums add up is impossible.
• I struggle to sleep at night worrying about debt.
• I sought support from StepChange Debt Charity and continue to repay my debts.

Christine Arkam (Expert witness voice)

Christine Arkam shares her lived experience navigating domestic violence. Homelessness and debt as a mother.

• Some background about me: I was working full time as a teacher in a primary school and my children were between 6-7 years of age. Unfortunately, due to the domestic violence I was experiencing from my partner, me and my children had to flee from home. We moved into a women’s refuge for a duration of 18 months. Due to the distance between my job, my children’s school, and the refuge, I had to leave my job and move my children to a nearby school. The home we had lived in previously was in my partner’s name. He deceived me and coerced me into taking out bank loans. I was in £31,000 debt. He promised to pay them off but lied.
• Every time we moved from accommodation to accommodation in the PRS I was always reassessed for benefits due to being a single mother in debt. By the time we reached TA I had built up so many arrears in rent.
• I also moved my children back to their original school where they felt most familiar and had already made friendships for their wellbeing, however, the monthly transport costs increased my debts. The head teacher at this school, where I worked, was very helpful and even gave me my job back.
• Eventually, we moved into permanent housing which was of poor quality. There was no furniture, so I had to rely on credit cards to buy white goods and cleaning products. The accommodation was in poor condition.
• In 2021, I was made redundant and used the redundancy pay to pay off my credit debts.
• After more than 10 years my children and I are still heavily affected by the trauma experienced.

Siobhain McDonagh opens Q&A

1. Felicity Buchan MP asks: “I have been informed that some of the debt placed onto women is enforced debt that they have not taken willingly. To what extent is it the case that women subject to domestic violence haven’t willingly taking it upon themselves?”

Professor Katherine Brickell answers: Not all domestic violence victims are coerced in debt, however, it is certainly a pattern that you can identify. Not sure if data would exist on all the coerced debt from domestic violence survivor victims. One of the things however, that crops up is the re-punishment of the domestic violence survivors through policies that are punitive in terms of the debts that they hold. Debts either not through their choice or even coerced. Those with rent arrears cannot bid on any social housing. And those in TA are faced with a debt burden to make the TA they’ve been allocated liveable and of proper standards. Most people who are in debt are so not by choice. The priority banding and allocation policy needs to be further reviewed.

Felicity Buchan MP states: “One thing that you brought up Katherine, is the quality of TA and this is something I am very focused on. As a government we need to ensure all housing is of a good and decent standard. Presently, we have just proposed the Social Housing Bill, enforcing higher standards are met on social housing, and we are in the process of bringing through Parliament the Private Renters Bill. This will therefore improve all types of housing and regulation. I know that in London, all the Local Authorities (LAs) have come together to work out ways to improve conditions in TA for households. Anyone who thinks the accommodation they’ve been allocated to does is unsuitable have the right to take it up with their LA.

2. Rebecca Long-Bailey MP states: “The report raises some important recommendations about increasing Local Housing Allowance and Universal Credit. “

Rebecca Long-Bailey MP asks: Following this report, do we want to draft our own letter to the Chancellor?” [agreed as action point that a letter will be drafted and sent]

Rebecca Long-Bailey MP asks: “Felicity, will you be putting the Chancellor under a bit if pressure to improve issues surrounding TA?”

Felicity Buchan answers: “We are in very detailed discussions with the Treasury, although decisions are not made until closer to the Autumn Statement which will be published sometime in November. I have listened to issues discussed and I hear you”.

Rebecca Long-Bailey MP asks: “Do you know when the Private Renters Reform Bill will be proposed?”

Felicity Buchan MP answers: “I cannot give exact timing of when this will happen, but we are looking into it. It is a manifesto commitment of ours, so we are committed.”

Amanda Aremie, (Adur & Worthing Councils) asks: “Is there anything that can be done to lift the cap on the rents LAs can charge on TA, so that LAs can procure better standards of accommodation?”

Felicity Buchan MP answers: “Very fair question. We are in discussions with the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) and the Treasury. Thank you for raising it.”

Siobhain McDonagh MP states: “There are councils fearing bankruptcy because of the amounts of money being spent on temporary accommodation. London councils are spending lots of money on TA. There are 400 TAs used in my constituency, throughout 23 years of my career I have never seen this”.

Felicity Buchan MP states: “We’ve huge pressures on the PRS and the Home Office have been hovering up lots of properties. We’ve had lots of arrivals of refugees from Ukraine (190,000), those from Hong Kong (180,000) and lots of asylum seekers. There are intense pressures on the housing market, and I am aware of the issues and the increasing usage of TA. My budget in DLUHC is £2 billion for TA for over 3 years, with £1 billion on homelessness prevention. We believe homelessness prevention is the key to reducing numbers in TA and so we’ve distributed this money to all the LAs in England. There has been lots of money invested into this. We are very focused on decreasing the numbers of TA. We are also aware of the problems involving Out Of Area (OOA) placements and Domestic Violence (DV)”.

Sam Pratt asks: “Felicity, there is a place held for the matter of TA in the Renters Reform Bill, but that’s just there as a placeholder with no government commitment included. Will TA be in the Bill?”

Felicity Buchan MP states: “Our philosophy is on improving all types of accommodation, and we are less focused on categorising TA as a specific type of housing. We are working more to improve standards instead”.

Siobhain McDonagh MP asks: “If someone was to approach the LA in my constituency, their response – most likely- would be to move you away to a different borough as there would be no stock of TA available. Trade off is between quality of TA and location and many sacrifice good standards just to remain local and live near their family and friends.

Professor Katherine Brickell states: “One thing Irhaa and I didn’t cover was how debt continues after homelessness journey.”

Irhaa states: “After 3 years of being on this journey, my mental health was affected, and I had no choice but to move back in with my husband because of the financial situation. He pays for me to live in a separate place with my children, however, I have to be careful. I must keep playing happy families with someone I hate; someone I am petrified of just so he can financially support me and my children. He has all the power, and he can decide one week to just not pay for the rent or food.

Professor Katherine Brickell states: “Irhaa’s story is very powerful because it shows the debt trap. Because of the impossibility of the maths, having to take this huge life decision, that no one should have to make. It is a trap that is failing women. It serves to show issues around gender inequalities and domestic violence, that have not been taken seriously enough. We hope from the report that the gender dimensions come out and the issues surrounding childcare and the difficulties women have to access employment are tackled. These issues are messy and complex and should be unpicked as such because TA is complex. So often when we think about homelessness, the issue of debt gets lost. Debt doesn’t occur through recklessness and financial literacy will not solve the problem. Women we spoke to are hugely financially literate. This needs structural change”.

Gabriella (online) asks: “In order to reduce numbers of vulnerable women (such as survivors of gender-based violence) and their children living in TA, the reforms in the PRS should involve procuring rent-controlled tenancies for women, as proposed by the Women’s Budget Group. If the Local Government works in tandem with the National government to ensure affordable rent are set to the local women’s wages (rather than the general average wages), some of the bottlenecks in the emergency housing system could be addressed. What are the likelihood measures such as this to be considered by the government?”

Felicity Buchan MP answers: “We are not going to do rent controls and the reason for this is, when rents were controlled, it introduced (ironically) higher rents. This was due to landlords leaving the PRS housing market and the shortage in supply. It just hasn’t worked. What we are looking into in the Renters Reform Bill is where rent can only be raised once in the year and can only be done so fairly to prevent high rent increases and rick of evictions”.

Actions:

To draft a letter to the Chancellor, urging them to increase the Local Housing Allowance
and Universal Credit rates due to the important recommendations highlighted in this
report.

Meeting was concluded at 15:50.

Emergency All-Party Parliamentary Group for Households in Temporary Accommodation and All-Party Parliamentary Group for Ending Homelessness

Monday 11/09/2023, 13.30-15.07, hybrid meeting
Portcullis House.

Secretariats:
APPG for Households in TA – Shared Health Foundation (SHF) and Justlife (JL)
APPG for Ending Homelessness – Crisis

Panellists: Dr Laura Neilson (SHF), Francesca Albanese (Crisis) Siobhain McDonagh MP (Labour), Bob Blackman MP (Conservative), Vicky Spratt (iNewspaper), Daniel Hewitt (ITV News), Kate Webb (GLA)

Attendees in person: Sam Pratt (SHF), Christa Macvier (JL), Simon Gale (JL), William Lewson Cole (Office of Natalie Elphicke MP), Anna Gorrell (Office of Catherine West MP), Hinna Ghafoor (Office of Catherine West MP), Harry Axelson (Office of Ben Everitt MP), Sally Cullins (Office of Richard Bacon MP), Amy Bentham (Office of Sharon Hodgson MP), Josh Hartley (Office of Sharon Hodgson MP), David Taylor (Havering Council), Emily Page (Pathways), Nicola Taylor (Office of Apsana Begum MP), Jack Logan (Office of Anne Marie Morris MP)

Number of attendees online: 140

Purpose:

An emergency meeting called by the APPG for Households in TA and APPG for Ending Homelessness to stress upon the need of a National Strategy on the homelessness crisis and increasing number of children (131,370) currently living in TA.

Meeting

Bob Blackman

Co-Chair of the APPG for Ending Homelessness opens the event, welcomes attendees, introduces the panellists, and makes opening remarks:

• We meet against the background on the increasing requirement for TA – there are stark statistics from London councils and across the country of households and children in TA.
• In my constituency – children in TA have been moved around multiple times, causing disruption to their education and wellbeing.
• Number of homeless households in TA has hit highest point in record in the last 25 years ago.
• There are many issues involved.
• My secondment private member’s Bill on Supported housing on exempt accommodation is now being regulated for the first time. We are still waiting for enactment, however.
• This is good news but still there are many vulnerable people out there being exploited by scrupulous landlords.

Francesca Albanese

Executive Director of Policy and Social Change from Crisis is pleased to have joined forces with the APPG on TA and discusses the latest findings from the ‘Homelessness monitor’ – a longitudinal study (part funded by Crisis and Joesph Rowntree Foundation), that provides a summary of homelessness impacts due to recent economic and policy developments in the UK.

• Homelessness in England is on the rise and usage of TA is acute, reaching 104,000 households and 131,370 children currently living in TA. This is enough to fill over 4000 classrooms.
• Monitor looks at current trends and predictions of homelessness, including all forms of homelessness such as: statutory homelessness, sofa surfers, people living in cars and unsuitable buildings – this developed data set is seen as the core of homelessness which is driven predominately by inflation and rising private rent costs, (alongside evictions).
• In short-term homelessness will increase. There is mounting pressure on households being pushed into homelessness and those already homeless are forced more and more into unsuitable TA, with insufficient amount of suitable accommodation for people to move into.
• Most striking finding from the monitor is the pressure LAs are under to procure housing in Private Rented Sector (PRS).
• PRS housing rates, lack of housing supply and frozen LHA rates are prime factors causing the homelessness crisis.
• However, we have modelled policy solutions as part of this research: 1) Short-term focus on households and social housing allocated to homeless households, 2) Increasing LHA to 30 percentile rates, 3)
• Maximising homelessness prevention, and 4) Long-term increase of social housing supply by 90,000 in the next 15 years.
• A national strategy (implementing these solutions) needs to address all forms of homelessness and the wider systemic issues of TA, and there needs to be a clear strategy on TA.

Dr Laura Neilson

CEO of Shared Health Foundation and doctor in Paediatric Emergency medicine. Laura requests clip of MP Siobhain McDonagh announcing in Parliament the increasing figures of children stuck in TA from 2019-2023 to be shown to panellists and online attendees.

• The issues highlighted today are not something that parliament are unaware of.
• There are in England 131,370 children stuck in TA and year-on-year there is a steady increase. We expect this to go up quicker this year for many reasons: 1) Processing and eviction notices, and 2) Issues already raised regarding housing market.
• As a doctor I see a huge cohort of homeless children. About 1 in 23 children in London are homeless. This is not only affecting housing sector but public services such as schools and NHS.
• Children who enter homelessness journey have all faced the day when they must be moved quickly to a different accommodation. Some of the children I’ve seen through the support hub we service in Oldham (and one opening in Heywood) have no where to sleep by the end of their school day. This is not an uncommon story.
• Reasons why children end up in TA is multitude: 1) Domestic violence plays a big part, 2) Relationship breakdowns, 3) Financial pressures, 4) Landlord and Local Authority evictions, 5) Children coming out of asylum systems. 1 child never had a home throughout their whole years in primary school.
• Lots of trauma develops from this unsettling experience and yet we expect children to move multiple times at such short notice. This makes it difficult to make friends, integrate at school and make meaningful relationships. We know that all this has an accumulative effect on a childhood’s development, and how they end up as adults.
• From NHS angle, these children are less immunised, fallen out of health checks and health systems. For children on waiting list, once they get to the top of that waiting list, often they have been moved out of area and must start again. This is the same in many areas of support such as education.
• Young children in particularly perform badly overall when living in TA. Common TAs are small and overcrowded, we’ve seen many toddlers unable to crawl and risk of them being unable to walk due to restrictive physical space. Children in TA also eat a lot of fast-food as there are no cooking appliances for home cooked meals.
• Another concern about TA is safety. We’ve had conversations about damp, condensation on windows, children gaining injuries due to there being no stairways and no basic safety features, no plugs, no plumbing. As a doctor I see children with head and body injuries because of this.
• No safeguarding – at the moment, we are mixing children in TA with adults who have many different needs and pose risks to children. Yet we are mixing them, unchecked in accommodation. I urge for action around safeguarding risks.
• Last year we conducted a mortality view with Bristol University and asked the question – “ How many children had died in TA in the last couple of years?” This had never been asked before. We found out that 34 children died in TA. This is equivalent to a whole primary school class. Most of these children were under 1 years of age with no medical problems. There was no reason why these children should have died.
• Combination of poverty, chaos, and unpredictability that leads to such tragic cases, and a lot of the times it’s the result of not having a cot.
• Children are placed into TA with no cots available. Who is responsible for the cot? We provide cots at our Hub – they are really cheap and can be lifesaving.
• I am asking for cross-party focus on this. There are ways in the NHS to improve this: 1) a Notification System to integrate public sector services, 2) Equal rights for children in education suffering with homeless as Looked After children, 3) Safeguarding to be taken seriously, 4) Proper risk assessment and 5) Cots for these young children.
• There must also be quick action to combat these issues. In our own homeless families support service we have seen a 300% increase in the last 6 months. This is a national issue that is barely hidden.

Vicky Spratt

Housing Correspondent, the iNewspaper reveals saddening case studies of families who were moved out of borough to unsuitable TA:

• This is emotional for me because I have worked for years with a mother whose child died from living in TA, her name is Kelly.
• Case study of Kelly whose asthmatic son died from living in a destitute TA away from original locality. Kelly’s son died in the ambulance on way to hospital. Kelly did not know her local health services. Had she remained in the area her children grew up in this would’ve been avoided. This is what displacement means for families and children. It shouldn’t be happening.
• I covered a story with a FOI expert Jack Shaw where we looked at the impact of these out of area placements. The data Jack pulled showed that nearly 30,000 households like Kelly were moved out of their original locality. We estimated that around 70,000 households in total.
• Families are moved away from there familiar surroundings and plunged into complete chaos.
• I have spent a month speaking with women in these situations and most of them suffered with avoidable tragedies.
• Case study of Stacey a 40-year-old carer who was moved out from her home. The new TA had no furniture, and she doesn’t know how long she will be living in her current home. She had also been made unemployed because she could not commute the long distance to her job.
• Case study of Besty: who was moved out of her original locality as there were no affordable housing. One of her children is autistic and nonverbal. Her husband works as a security guard in west London and would commute long distances often. Betsy would take children far out to a school that had special support for her child and spend rest of the day waiting in this area until end of school day to take her children back home. On top of this, the TA they were moved to was on the top floor of a block of flats. She had to struggle up the stairs with her children and a child that is very difficult to deal with. The council told Besty there was nothing they could do. However, I made them move her and the family back to their original area. It shouldn’t take a journalist to do that.
• There is no plan for TA. I have been reporting on this for 10 years and it’s only getting worse.
• TA can be fatal, and the case study of Kelly shows how evictions can cause potential dangers to lives.
  This issue is acute in London but areas across England are also affected.

Daniel Hewitt

Investigations Correspondent for ITV News reports on case studies and findings of families pushed into the brink of homelessness and living in unsuitable TA:

• 2 ½ years ago we first started looked how initially the issues surrounding social housing and then came across a block of flats in England where the conditions were described by Shelter and others, as the worst in Britain.
• In a block of flats in Croydon I can absolutely see how you can end up with 34 child deaths. A family in a flat had so much damp and safety risks I was surprised the children hadn’t already been injured or killed.
• Conditions were appalling. Damp everywhere, water in the electrical appliances, carpet drenched. That was a TA.
• Many cases such as these have been happening for a long time. We are at a crunch point where lack of intervention, support, and policy on this has widen the net of poverty.
• We hear a lot of the times that work is the way out of poverty, but from what we’ve seen that is simply not true.
• Case study of 1 man with family who had a no-fault eviction. This man has a full-time job but could not afford to pay Landlord’s asking price of £1500pcm rent. Plunged into TA in the PRS sector but through the experience he saw his children’s health deteriorate. He was doing all the right things to earn his keep but had been thrown to the wolves. His local council told him there was no housing available. I’ve seen this happen to many families.
• Biggest worry I have is that these families are losing hope. That is a very dangerous place to be in.
• The main party do not have a grasp of this national scandal and it is not treated as a national scandal by enough politicians or press.
• The impact TA has on children cannot be overstated. Some families who are moved to hotels or B&Bs are left there, forgotten for months and months.
• We’ve created a generation of children that may never have anywhere to live and are absorbing all that uncertainty.
• This issue has to be top priority for the main political parties.
• There needs to be a post-war plan to quickly re-build good social housing to accommodate all that are stuck for long periods of time in TA.

Kate Webb

Head of Housing Strategy for Greater London Authority (GLA) makes following statements on the pressure’s councils face on the ground:

• 1 in 23 children in London living in TA fills up more than just one classroom.
• Undoubtably this is a pressure that looms larger than life for politicians working in London.
• We need to acknowledge that the safety net we ask households to fall upon doesn’t feel very safe or central or very much like a public service aimed at improving lives.
• Policies makers should not shy away from these issues.
• I think it is important that people think about the eco-systems that LAs are working in. What we are seeing is a housing crisis.
• People simple cannot find an accommodation that they can afford or there isn’t any accommodation on the market in their area. In fact, the agency that they are turning to for help are also struggling with the barriers.
• There isn’t a magic pool of accommodation that LAs can call upon.
• Lack of accommodation that the household could afford is what is driving the usage of out-of-area TA (increasingly out of London), hotels, B&B and other forms of TA.
• LAs budget is being crippled by TA spend.
• All of London boroughs are aligned with the Mayor of London and other cross-sector organisations in acknowledging that this is a priority where action must be taken.
• What we cannot shy away from is that the big policy leaders, treasury, and central government need to be pulled into this discussion and step up to pull those levers.
• Reformation of LHA rates must happen. People on standard incomes in London cannot afford rent. LHA has become a mainstream part of how people on standard incomes make ends meet.
• What you get on LHA rates bears no resemblance to reality and this exacerbates pressures onto LAs.
• LHA rates have been frozen since 2020. What we hear less from is an additional LHA route that helps keep people in TA- this has not changed since 2011.
• We need to invest in social housing urgently. The state has the responsibility to put the investment in which will pave a way out of this crisis.
• At the moment, there is no way we can continue relying on the PRS – we must have a new build strategy.
• We are looking at short-term solutions as realistically we will not be able to build enough homes by January next year. The consensus is to look at acquisitions in London however, there are certain constraints to what can be pulled from the housing market.
• None of this is new evidence and unfortunately, we haven’t moved the big decision makers enough.

Siobhain McDonagh opens Q&A

1. Rachel Williamson asks: “Is there any hope that government will use the Autumn statement to discuss LHA rates and housing?

Francesca Albanese – Keep the pressure on anyone in a position to highlight issues and make change.

Vicky Spratt – Find new ways to explain the issues with policy makers.

Siobhain McDonagh – There should be a monetary policy commitment to reduce the impact of rent in the PRS. In all honesty, I do not believe the housing crisis and LHA rates will be mentioned in the Autumn statement. I hope I am wrong.

2. David Taylor asks: “How are LAs supposed to balance upkeep of housing standards with procurement?

Vicky Spratt – Lead from examples of good social housing.

Kate Webb – Lobby government urgently to see what plans they must solve this issue.

Siobhain McDonagh – Get local MPs and Councillors to join forces and protest issue for investment in housing standards.

3. Helen Lawrence asks: “Is there a consensus on mitigating people from being moved out of area?”

Dr Laura Neilson – Shared Health Foundation provides service through their Focused care project that supports people throughout their homelessness journey. However, this responsibility cannot be held by charities alone.

Siobhain McDonagh – Additionally, implementing a service akin to Ofsted will improve safeguarding for households, preventing many from being moved out of area.

4th All-Party Parliamentary Group for Households in Temporary Accommodation.

Wednesday 07/06/2023, 11.00-12.00, hybrid meeting
Room C, 1 Parliament St.

Joint Secretariats: Shared Health Foundation (SHF) and Justlife (JL)

Attendees:

Sam Pratt (SHF), Christa Maciver (JL), Siobhain McDonagh (MP, Labour), Baroness Natalie Bennett (Green party), Rob McCartney (Manchester City Council), Ian Swift (Islington Council), Jonathan Pritchard (Southern NHS Foundation Trust), Paul Sylvester (Bristol Council), Lord Richard Best, Mary D’Arcy (Common Projects), George O’Neill (Cardinal Hulme)

Number of attendees online: 37

Purpose:

To discuss the impact of Temporary Accommodation on Local Authorities across London, Manchester, and Bristol.

Meeting

Chair of APPG Siobhain McDonagh (SM) began the meeting and introduced the first speaker Rob McCartney (RM) Assistant Director for Homelessness for Manchester City Council.

RM provided an overview of Manchester Councils position on TA.

• Extremely challenging, there are still 3200 households in TA however, the shift towards homelessness prevention work and changing our allocations policy has helped reduce numbers.
• There were 227 households in B&Bs now 37, stays are only for 6 weeks no longer.
• Striving to reduce number of households moved out of area. 1 family currently placed out of catchment area.

Actions:

• Aim is to improve work on prevention from TA with alternative supply. Negotiations with landlords and preventing section 21 evictions.
• Cost of placing households in B&Bs projected at £33 million pounds, currently £7 million in a full year.
• Changing allocation policy – households accepting private rented sector (PRS) properties continue to be owed same level of priority for social housing allocation and therefore more willing to accept PRS.
• Housing line officers checking 415 cases per week, working on prevention opportunities and move-on options.
• Prioritising paying for prevention than investing in TA. Preventing households becoming homeless can reduce demand for TA.

Ian Swift (IS) Director of Housing Needs and Strategy for Islington Council (Second speaker).

IS provided an overview of Islington Council’s position on TA.

• The homelessness framework is broken.
• Massive overspends in budgets, pressures from homelessness prevention and homeless services.
• Services are led by residents’ needs and political ambitions – we don’t believe people should be in TA, and if they are it should only be for a short stay.
• Any prolonged stays can affect mental health, links with health, adult and children’s services and educational attainment.
• 1050 households currently living in TA, with 50% of those placed out of borough.
• Last 12 months a 35% increase in TA usage. This is due to PRS markets offering no LHA rates.
• More people in TA than last year due to reduction in social rented accommodation.
• Forced to move people outside Islington as cannot rehouse them.
• 50% households living in council own TA. Other 50% living in some form of PRS that is not secure.
• More government investment in homelessness sector is needed.

Actions:

• Like Manchester, we are redesigning our allocation scheme in July, providing more priority to those in prevention stage.
• Putting people into private rented sectors; we don’t use B&Bs.
• Need to reshape service providers and redesign the homelessness framework.
• 30% LHA rates must be reinstalled as the current structure is flawed.
• Welcome a new approach to TA usage into a more regulatory framework, to keep focus on residents. A greater focus on TA Action Groups with Shelter & Crisis as the residents’ voices are crucial.

Paul Sylvester (PS) Head of Housing Options for Bristol Council (third speaker).

PS provided an overview of Bristol Council’s position on TA.

• There has been a rising increase in TA usage; 87% increase compared to number of households before the pandemic.
• Currently 1300 households in TA- difficult to reduce.
• Last couple years we have seen a steady rise in family with children households using TA.
• Policy aim is not to place households out of area, but if we can’t rehouse them within Bristol, then we re-allocate them to areas with easy access to transport.
• Alongside increase in TA, rising costs due to increase in placements and inflationary pressures increasing the average unit cost in managed private TA.
• Our net costs in TA are £11.5 million which is putting pressure on council budgets. Housing subsidy is also fixed at the 2011 rates adding to this concern.
• High housing provider charges are the main issue- unsustainable.
• Significant financial pressures on social care- considering cuts to homelessness services.
• Average rent in PRS is between £350 to £1300 p/m dependent on size of the property.
• Capacity to supply TA for growing demand isn’t there but we are working on it!
• LHA fixed rates compared to market rates is a massive problem.
• Limited availability of TAs in Bristol impacting on households’ support networks as moved away.
• Emergency situation – not enough emergency grant available to manage homelessness pressures.

Actions:

• Council delivers millions of pounds in homelessness services.
• Homelessness grant from DHLUC at £3 million per year, however, this is not enough to cover costs.
• Working ambitiously to provide a growing number of affordable housings. We are working on council housing new bill programme – 1000 new affordable homes in 2024.
• More supply of social rented housing.
• Emergency Accommodation (EA) Standards Framework released in 2016, to improve management of standards. All properties inspected. Have seen improvement in quality of provision. We are working with providers delivering properties at lower end of market.
• Justlife taken interest in Bristol, establishing TAAG and we are meeting them for the first-time next week.
• Cross-cutting cross-council TA programme. Aims to reduce the cost of TA to council and meet the needs of clients.
• Over allowance on privately managed TA system. We are keen to address this by commissioning more supported housing and increasing in-house provision. Plans to achieve this by this year.
• Increasing supply, converting council assets, acquiring properties of a new build, and installing module units.

Jonathan Pritchard (JP) Associate Director of Housing and Community Inclusion at Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust who presented overview of services and work achieved across county of Hampshire and city of Southampton.

3 mains streams to my role:

• Looking at discharge destinations for services users – how we are discharging them along with links to housing teams.
• Approach and strategy towards key worker accommodation.
• Changing how we work within the community.

How we work with Local Authorities (LA) partners to ensure that people owed can stay in their own homes or move through systems easily.

• The ‘Everyone In’ campaign example: Joint workers supported people who were homeless or at risk of homelessness; created new partnerships with LAs embedding mental health clinicians into local authority housing teams.
• Currently 5 posts live covering 6 LA areas. These roles are preventing hospital admissions, avoiding evictions, keeping people safe and well in the community.
• Data set from 1 LA that had MH nurse embedded in team. Colleague remained in post for year when data was collected supported 50 clients: prevented 9 people needing hospital admissions who were in community-based accommodation, 14 referrals made to social care authorities, 2 referred to specialist support action for those with more complex needs in TA, 10 avoided evictions.
• Reducing social stressors in service users lives that prevents them from engagement with housing providers and LA teams such as piloting citizens advice in the hospital. First 12 months of pilot, citizens advice worked with 64 people. 388 distinctive advice needs. Main advice areas are housing and financing but also supporting those with wider issues i.e., transport. £115,000 financial benefit for these people.
• Working with DWP, and job centre colleagues delivering drop-in sessions for our service users.
• Interventions allow quicker discharge and sustainability. People who are more settled are less like to need emergency health care or TA.
• Implementation of these opportunities demonstrate better support for underserved populations.
• Must build trust between partners, share information in the government framework, individuals and organisations to be more agile in response to local issues, and remove stigma often attached to mental health and living in TA.
• Be honest – are we serious about ending homelessness.

Questions:

SM opened the panel for Q&A:

Q1:

Lord Richard Best Is the Oversight Bill on supported exempt accommodation helping, should it need to be licensed and how much do LAs use this type of accommodation?

IS We support Bob Blackman’s Oversight Bill on supported exempt accommodation. It is needed! We don’t use exempt accommodation for TA because of the dangers of placing households in this sector.

RM Our TA figures do not support exempt accommodation. Work happening on supported exempt is most needed.

PS 1250 units of supported accommodation for households which is deemed as supported exempt. We do not have any dodgy providers of supported exempt accommodation.

Q2:

Online What capacity do landlords have to monitor and enforce minimum standards of TA and is there anything we can do so that medical evidence is not charged for?

SM: Recommend seeing your local MP.

IS Islington Council does have a quality standard framework– available on our website. We have a standard for TA, we are expecting all landlords to hit that standard. In terms of charge, we have policy not to go to doctor. We will write professional medical review.

RM We would contact GPs directly and we wouldn’t charge for it. Our TA properties are inspected, though there is much pressure in housing teams and homelessness sector. Needs to be an improvement on standards in PRS.

PS Our properties are inspected but we struggle to have routine inspections of standards. We don’t have the money to employ people to inspect standards proactively.

Q3:

Mary D’Arcy Is there a push from this committee to look at LHA and subsidy requirements, to talk about the policy on this, the requirements and where it is currently sitting?

SM What are the co-secretariats doing for families and children?

Sam Pratt What we found working in Greater Manchester is that families placed in TA have no wider support to help them engage with education, health, housing, etc. Not anyone’s fault just no funding or resources available. At SHF we implement Focused Care workers to work one-to-one with families. An advocate providing holistic support for families and working in the middle space with the family, LAs and other sectors involved.

Q4:

George O’Neill Are there any lessons or interventions to improve child support in TA?

RM Confusion between rough sleeping and homelessness. Reality is that 10,000 families a day needing TA. We don’t have properties to rehouse families quickly in Manchester. We have a new way we view homelessness. Most homeless families are in TA. Starting point is to focus on homeless families and separate rough sleeping and family homelessness.

PS Most families who are homeless need some support. We are looking at commissioning more supported accommodation with registered providers. We are focused on improving family experience in TA.

Q5:

Online What is the greatest prospect for positive change in London?

IS Subsidy in Islington is broken – redesign of homelessness framework is society’s responsibility to solve homelessness. Focused groups to channel residents’ voice are crucial to implement sustainable change. Ultimately, there is a need for more social housing.

Plans for next APPG

To investigate housing benefit subsidy and local housing allowance rates for residents living in TA.

Meeting concluded at 12pm.

AGM of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Households in Temporary Accommodation.

Wednesday 26th April, 15.00-15.30, in person meeting
Room W1, Westminster House

Co-Secretariats: Shared Health Foundation (SHF) and Justlife (JL)

Attendees in Person:
Sam Pratt (SHF), Ischia Wise-Martin (SHF), Christa Maciver (Justlife), Siobhain McDonagh MP (Labour, Chair), Rebecca Long-Bailey MP(Labour, Secretary), Bob Blackman MP (Conservative, Vice chair), Stephen Timms MP (Labour, Vice chair), Karen Buck MP(Labour, Vice chair), Paula Barker MP (Labour) and Lord Richard Best.

Agenda

To vote on re-electing existing officers to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Households in Temporary Accommodation.

Meeting

Chair of APPG Siobhain McDonagh MP led the meeting with the following:

• Highlighting the agenda for the meeting
• Provided vote for Siobhain McDonagh to continue as Registered Chair of the APPG
• Provided vote for Rebecca Long Bailey to continue her role as Secretary of the APPG
• Provided vote for Sir Stephen Timms, Karen Buck, Bob Blackman, Lloyd Russell-Moyle and Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle to continue their roles as Vice Officers of the APPG
• Provided vote for Shared Health Foundation and Justlife to continue role as co-secretariats of the APPG

Participates of the meeting voted in agreement on the above votes.

The meeting was concluded at 15:05