The Wakefield Story Regional Champions 20067

1
The Wakefield Story Regional Champions 2006/7

• A presentation to the Regional Homelessness Forum
• 8 December 2006

2
Where were we? (2003-2005)

• An under resourced homelessness service
• Inaccessible premises with poor facilities for
  staff and customers
• Sharply increasing homeless presentations and
  acceptances
• Spiralling use of bed and breakfast
• Long stays in temporary accommodation
• Delays in decision making
• Escalating costs

3
Where are we now?

• A restructured well resourced service
• Located in accessible one stop premises in
  Wakefield City Centre
• Bed and breakfast for emergencies only
• Temporary accommodation halved
• Private sector leasing scheme in place
• New nomination agreement with RSLs
• Prevention services introduced and working well
• Specialist services for homeless young people
• Budgets under control

4
Performance - where are we now?

• Applications down by 61
• Emergency placements - down by 36
• Acceptances down by 40
• Numbers in temporary accommodation down by 61
• Numbers in BB down by 98
• 16 17 year old emergency placements down by
  46
• 16 17 year old acceptances - down by 28

5
Homeless Applications Under Investigation
6
Cases approaching the Homeless Unit
7
Use of Emergency Accommodation
8
Use of Emergency Accommodation
9
Homeless Acceptances
10
Where are we going?
11
A New Homelessness Strategy

• More choices and settled solutions for people in
  housing need
• More accessible information about housing and
  homelessness
• Help more people to move away from rough sleeping
• Reducing offending and re-offending
• A greater role for the voluntary and community
  sector
• More engagement with homeless people and those
  who are vulnerable to homelessness

12
The Local Area Agreement

• Homelessness included as stretch targets in the
  Local Area Agreement
• 895k of additional funding for homelessness
  projects
• Including match funding and partner agency
  contributions the total value of the plan is
  2.49m

13
HomeSpace

• A partnership with Wakefield and District Housing
  to increase the number of properties available
• Properties purchased on the open market by WDH
  using private finance
• Council contributes an equity stake
• Dispersed non estate properties
• Properties managed by the RSL
• Council has 100 nominations
• ASTs with move on after 2 years or option to
  purchase a share

14
Families First

• Intensive support interventions for families with
  children where there is anti social behaviour
• At high risk of eviction or intentionally
  homeless and at risk of repeat homelessness
• Holistic multi-agency approach
• Now to be a much larger scale scheme using
  Respect money

15
First Rung

• Scheme aimed at young people 16-24
• Homeless or at high risk of homelessness
• Aim is to provide incentives to private landlords
  including
• Finders fee
• Rent and damage guarantees
• Support for tenants
• Contact point for Landlords
• Assistance with housing benefits, legal issues etc

16
Homeless Prevention

• Local Authority staff to develop the prevention
  toolkit
• Specialist debt worker
• 2 HomeFinder posts to develop housing options
  and provide support with Choice Based Lettings
• Continuation of Rough Sleepers Worker post
  (seconded to Rent Deposit Scheme)