Homelessness post Aweys

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Homelessness post -Aweys

• Kuljit Bhogal
• Catherine Rowlands
• 15 October 2009

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Aweys the facts

• Six families each with 6/7 children
• Housed in 2/3 bedroom properties
• Initial refusal to accept a homelessness
  application, advice to apply for a transfer,
  asked to complete a rehousing form or advised to
  use Home Options scheme
• Eventually accepted as homeless by Birmingham
• All unintentionally homeless and in priority need
  

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Aweys Admin Court

• Originally a challenge to Bhams allocations
  policy.
• Street homeless applicants provided TA were in
  Band A
• The homeless at home were placed in Band B
• Band A was the higher priority band
• Collins J impossible to justify the division
  between bands A and B, concern that policy was
  driven by financial advantages that flow from
  making less use of TA, policy unlawful

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Aweys - CoA

• CoA agreed with Collins J
• From the moment they were accepted as homeless
  the law treated them as being without
  accommodation. The s.193(2) duty was to secure
  that accommodation was available for occupation
  by them. The homeless at home ought to have been
  in TA just as the street homeless has been placed
  in TA

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Moran the facts

• Fled DV, living in a womens refuge
• Evicted from refuge
• Manchester decided she had become homeless
  intentionally
• M appealed the decision that it could be
  reasonable to continue to occupy the refuge

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Reasonable to continue to occupy (1)

• 175 Homelessness and threatened homelessness
• (1)     A person is homeless if he has no
  accommodation available for his occupation, in
  the United Kingdom or elsewhere, which he
• (a)     is entitled to occupy by virtue of an
  interest in it or by virtue of an order of a
  court,
• (b)     has an express or implied licence to
  occupy, or
• (c)     occupies as a residence by virtue of any
  enactment or rule of law giving him the right to
  remain in occupation or restricting the right of
  another person to recover possession.
• (2)     A person is also homeless if he has
  accommodation but
• (a)     he cannot secure entry to it, or
• (b)     it consists of a moveable structure,
  vehicle or vessel designed or adapted for human
  habitation and there is no place where he is
  entitled or permitted both to place it and to
  reside in it.
• (3)     A person shall not be treated as having
  accommodation unless it is accommodation which it
  would be reasonable for him to continue to occupy.

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Reasonable to continue to occupy (2)

• 191 Becoming homeless intentionally
• (1)     A person becomes homeless intentionally
  if he deliberately does or fails to do anything
  in consequence of which he ceases to occupy
  accommodation which is available for his
  occupation and which it would have been
  reasonable for him to continue to occupy.

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House of Lords

• Both sections looks to the future as well as the
  present by the use of the words continue to
  occupy.
• This allows Bham to accept a family as homeless
  even though they can actually get by where they
  are for a while longer. Council can then start
  to look for suitable acc.
• Otherwise familys application would have to be
  rejected until they could not stay there any
  longer, removes need for repeated applications.
• However, Bham cannot leave families
  indefinitely, will come a point where not
  reasonable to occupy for another night and LA
  will have to act.

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• In Manchester, this interpretation allows the
  woman fleeing DV to remain homeless even though
  she is housed in the refuge
• R v Ealing LBC v Sidhu (1981-82) 2 HLR 45 QBD
  (which held that accommodation in a refuge is not
  accommodation) wrongly decided
• LA can decide it is not reasonable to continue to
  occupy acc even if it reasonable to occupy for a
  little while longer

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General Principles

• The concepts of whether it is reasonable to
  occupy accommodation (section 175(3)) and
  suitability both depend on the time the person
  is expected to occupy that accommodation, judged
  at the time the decision falls to be made 41,
  42, 47.
• A local authority may therefore find a person
  homeless from accommodation which is available to
  her on the basis that it would not be reasonable
  as of that date for her to continue to occupy it
  for the foreseeable future and, but for the
  intervention of the local authority, she would
  remain there for the foreseeable future. That is
  so even if she could return to the accommodation
  she currently occupies that night.

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• 3. Once the local authority reaches the
  conclusion that it would not be reasonable for
  the applicant to live in the accommodation she
  currently occupies for the foreseeable future,
  they owe a duty to the applicant (depending on
  whether she is in priority need and intentionally
  homeless).
• 4. The local housing authority is unlikely to be
  able to find permanent suitable accommodation
  immediately and it is more likely that they will
  provide short-term accommodation. Short-term
  accommodation may be provided in one of four ways

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• a. The local authority may defer taking a
  decision as to homelessness for a short period of
  time. During this period, the applicant may be
  housed in short-term accommodation pursuant to
  section 188 (accommodation pending
  inquiries/decision).
• b. Short-term accommodation pending review of
  that initial decision under section 202.
• c. Short-term accommodation pending an appeal
  against the review of the initial decision under
  section 204.
• d. Performance (discharge) of the housing duty
  under section 193.
• 5. None of that accommodation need be suitable
  for the applicant to reside in on a long-term or
  permanent basis because suitability varies with
  the time for which the applicant is likely to
  reside there. See R v LB Brent ex parte Awua
  1996 1 AC 55.