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azzuri · 'Our Scotland' Fossil Joined: 12 Sep 2005 Posts: 3792

see - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4397248.stm

The number of children living in bed and breakfasts after their family became homeless has almost doubled in three years, according to new figures.
Some 262 youngsters were in such accommodation on 31 March, up from 234 last year and 142 in 2002.

The Scottish Executive said last year that children should only be housed in B&Bs in exceptional circumstances.

Nationalists said the figures were a "national disgrace" but ministers said new laws were taking effect.

The executive figures showed that there were 57,000 homeless applications last year, up by 1% on 2004.

Priority need

More than 60% of the applications were from single people, while 24% came from single parents.

More than 70% of those assessed during the year were classified as homeless and almost 30,000 were found to be in priority need.

The proportion of those with a priority need who were offered permanent accommodation rose from 60% to 72%.

There was a 15% rise in households who were in temporary accommodation in March this year, to more than 7,500.

More than half were put up in local authority accommodation, with 21% in bed and breakfasts and 21% in hostels.

The figures showed that more than 80% of the 2,373 households with children who were placed in temporary accommodation were in local authority premises, with 7% in B&Bs.

Scottish National Party housing spokeswoman Tricia Marwick said: "Once again we see that the executive talks a good game without following through on its promises.

"It is a national disgrace that families with children are being forced to live in B&B accommodation and this situation must be addressed as a matter of urgency.

Personal circumstances

"Everyone has the right to a secure, warm home they can afford, but these figures show that this is not the reality for a significant number of people in Scotland."

However, an executive spokeswoman said: "What these figures show is how many families were in that kind of accommodation but they tell us nothing about the personal circumstances of these families or how low they were there."

The Conservatives' communities spokeswoman, Mary Scanlon, said homelessness applications had risen by 39% since Labour came to power.

"The real figure is estimated to be higher still as there are many more people sleeping rough who make no appearance on official statistics," she said.

Communities Minister Malcolm Chisholm said the figures showed that new legislation was taking effect.

He welcomed a slowing down in the rate at which homeless applications were increasing.

"We are determined to prevent and tackle homelessness, including repeat homelessness, and it is encouraging to see that more people are being housed in permanent accommodation," he said.

I don't know much about the law on this - but I thought that if you were homeless the local council had a legal obligation to find you a place to stay? Am I wrong on this?

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parkhead_rfb · Getting on a bit! Joined: 13 Oct 2005 Posts: 1974

this is from an essay i did last year on the subject of homelesness.

Examine the difficulties in developing policies to reduce the incidence of rough sleeping. Is there any evidence that recent initiatives are likely to be more successful than in the past?

The right to housing is seen in the contemporary world as a fundamental human right. It is perhaps odd then when we consider that in contemporary Britain there are a considerable number of people who do not have this fundamental right, the office of the deputy prime minister puts the figure for England at 508 in 2004, surely then something should be done to eradicate the problem of homelessness? It can be said that most would be in favour of the eradication of homelessness, what is not so simple, however, is the way in which the policy makers should go about this as various different policies which can be used to tackle homelessness have both their positive and negative features. Before examining, however, the difficulties in developing such policies and to what extent it can be predicted how well the most recent policy developments in this area will work we must first look at the causes and nature of homelessness in the first instance.

Perhaps the common perception of the problem of homelessness can be said to be the image of the addict, possibly addicted to drugs or alcohol, who has lost control of their life and eventually lose their home. The reasons and nature of homelessness though can differ greatly from this. Examples of differing reasons for homelessness rather than the stereotypical addict are partners fleeing from domestic abuse, young people forced from the family home, those discharged from institutions i.e. prisons or hospitals, learning disabilities, mental illness (30-50%), old age, physical disability etc (Balchen and Rhoden, 2002). It is clear then that the reasons relating to homelessness are far reaching and varied this can also be said, however, for the natures of homelessness. The traditional view of homelessness has been perhaps in its simplest form the individual or family with no home forced to live on the streets in card board boxes and sleeping bags. While this is a type of homelessness it is by no means the only classification of homelessness. It can be argued that those people who although they may have immediate shelter it is not in fact in the form of their own home but do to the support of a relative or that they are temporarily housed i.e. homeless shelters as someone could still be classes as homeless if their current accommodation is not sustainable. It is clear then that homelessness is a topic with many diverse causes and effects and as such there can be differing types of policy implemented to cope with this social issue. But what have past policies been and what are the difficulties which arise in the implementation of them?

Since the dawn of industrialisation housing policy has been of importance in Britain. Acts such as the 1875 public health act which extended powers to demolish slum areas where the first attempts by government to regulate what up until then was very much seen as a private sector concern although in effect they simply gave enabling powers rather than being seen as duties (Harriot & Matthews, 1998). Perhaps more significant in terms of contemporary housing policy, however, the Octavia Hill approach which showed that by combining modern housing management and social work it was possible to make a profit from housing the poor in decent conditions (Harriot & Matthews, 1998). Moving into the twentieth century the next major government policy intervention in housing was the introduction of rent controls in 1915. This act was in response to the fact that at the start of the First World War rents in the private sector were rising rapidly meaning the poorer individuals in society faced either homelessness, or poorer living conditions. Although the 1915 act was a further regulation of the private housing sector it did little to combat the social problems poor housing were causing. It was not until the 1920’s that government its self, through local authorities, began to actually provide housing for the public themselves (Harriot & Matthews, 1998).

The 1920’s was a significant time in housing policy in the UK as not only was it the beginning of state provided housing this era also saw the growth of the ‘garden village’ approach to house building as opposed to the previous ‘high density’ terraced housing (Harriot & Matthews, 1998) Under the Wheatley act of 1924, which improved the subsidy arrangements, council housing increased so that by 1939 a million council houses had been produced and now represented 10% of the total housing stock. The 1930 Greenwood act further emphasised this new shift towards public sector housing with the emphasis now turning to councils not only clearing slums but providing new council homes for those previously housed there (Harriot & Matthews, 1998). These policies, however, did not last as by the early thirties the government was under pressure to reduce public expenditure. This lead to not only less council homes being built but those that were built tended to be of poor quality with lower rent subsidies making them harder for the poor to afford (Harriot & Matthews, 1998).

The Second World War did nothing to alleviate problems in housing policy. During the war years very little repair or construction of housing had taken place due to the fact that as many resources as possible were being directed towards the war effort, coupled with the fact that around 400,000 homes were destroyed by bombs it is clear that government attention would be required in this area (Harriot & Matthews, 1998). The housing provisions act of 1946 which introduced new subsidies as well as the building of so called ‘pre fabricated housing’, which reduced the costs of skilled Labour (Harriot & Matthews, 1998). By the 1950’s, however, a new Conservative government was in power which once again wished to encourage the building of private sector housing.

During the 1950’s and 1960’s building licences were phased out, there was a boom in the construction of properties for owner occupation, subsidies were gradually reduced and councils were encouraged to build high density developments such as high rise flats. By 1964, however, the Labour government reintroduced rent controls for the private sector with the 1965 rent act and set a target of half a million council homes to be built a year with the 1967 housing act also increasing subsidies available to local authorities (Harriot & Matthews, 1998). The election of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government in 1979 though has been considered a turning point in British housing policy.

The implementation of the ‘right to buy scheme’ is seen as one of thee most controversial policies in housing. This policy gave tenants of council houses the right to buy their house at a discounted rate from the market price with the deregulation of mortgages making it easier for those who previously would not have been eligible for mortgages to obtain one. The plus side of this particular policy can be seen to be that it freed government up in many ways from housing expenditure , and allowed many people who would not previously have been able to , to afford to buy their home.. The down side of Conservative housing policy, however, was that it led to the better quality housing stock being quickly bought off leaving the less desirable housing stock which was often of very poor quality due to the lack of investment in building new council homes and the maintenance of others (Ellison & Pierson, 2003) This of course lead to a shortage of housing as for those who required it there was either no housing available or, the housing they were offered was off very poor quality and in terms of homelessness those from groups likely to become homeless still had the problems of maintaining a residency i.e. keeping up with the rent. This of course contributed to the problem of rough sleeping. The allocation of housing also increased the problem of rough sleeping during this period. The previous points system of point’s allocation meant that many people, frequently single men and those under 18 years of age, were not offered housing whilst those with small children were offered accommodation although this was generally of very poor quality. The conservative policy of housing the homeless in temporary accommodation such as, bed and breakfasts could also be considered to be a poor policy as not only did it cost on average £15,500 a year to keep a family in such accommodation whereas the cost of supplying a council house dwelling would have been the considerably less sum of £8, 200 this also contributed in many cases to people becoming reliant on an institutionalised form of life and made it difficult for those with problems of addiction to break those habits (Balchin & Rhoden, 2002). It can be said then that the current Labour government inherited quite severe problems in the area of housing.

These problems have been outlined as follows:
“ housing investment was at an all time low, there was no strategy for dealing with the poor physical condition of housing stock, social housing had been stigmatised and seen as part of the problem, tenant involvement in decision making was minimal, deregulation of the private sector had not led to any improvement in the physical conditions or management practices, parts of the home ownership market were ‘dysfunctional’ and any balanced housing strategy had been lost to the ideological goal of breaking up local authority housing (Ellison & Pierson, 2003, pg145)”. How then has the Labour government set out to tackle these problems? In 1997 the Labour government took immediate action to combat the problem of social housing releasing £800 million of the money which had been gained from the right to buy initiative that local authorities had been prevented from spending with a further increase in this sum following the comprehensive spending review in 1998. Steps were also taken to specifically combat the problem of rough sleeping with a rough sleepers unit established within what was previously known as the Department of the Environment, Transport and the regions (Ellison & Pierson, 2003). The 2002 homelessness act, however, can be seen as being thee major action Labour has taken to combat rough sleeping (in England and Wales). The 2002 homelessness act means that local authorities now have a duty to house those who under the act are now termed as being in priority need these groups include young people, care leavers, those who are vulnerable custody (in Wales vulnerability does not have to be proven) as a result of being looked after, accommodated or fostered by the local authority, those fleeing violence and those who are vulnerable due to time in the armed forces, leaving prison or having been remanded in custody (in Wales vulnerability does not have to be proven) (www.homelessnessact.org). It can be argued, however, that these policies do not go far enough in terms of targeting the problem of rough sleeping as they still do not guarantee many other groups who are likely to become rough sleepers the right to accommodation and more importantly sustainable accommodation. It has been said though that the Scottish parliament has began to implement some of thee most progressive policies, in terms of homelessness, in Europe (Big issue (Scotland), issue 500)

With the Scottish housing act (2001) and the Scottish housing act (2003) it can be argued that in terms of combating homelessness Scotland has some of the most advanced legislation in Europe. The main features of the 2001 housing act were that local authorities now have a duty to house those people who present themselves as homeless whilst they are being assessed, provide advice to those who are homeless or in danger of becoming homeless, extended the definition of ‘threatened with homelessness’, new duties on social land lords to help local authorities carry out their duties towards homeless people, the right for homeless people to have their cases reviewed and new rights for hostel residents (www.scsh.co.uk). The 2003 housing act took these reforms even further with the commitment to phase out priority need within ten years, the expansion of priority to include people such as those under 18, those formerly in care, those leaving institutions such as the armed forces, mental illness, disability etc (www.scsh.co.uk).
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"our revenge will be the laughter of our children" bobby sands MP

"there is no equality in a society that stands upon the political and economic bog, if only the strongest make it good or survive" bobby sands MP

parkhead_rfb · Getting on a bit! Joined: 13 Oct 2005 Posts: 1974

in short i think scotland is doing pretty well in terms of housing legislation. that was only the rough draft of the essay but during my reading i found that the scottish housing legislation was widely viewed as a massive step by the founder of the big issue and other homeless groups. The problem still remains though that the accomodation which la's can offer is still all too often of a very poor quality, despite the increased funding in this area. New labour cant totall take the blame for this, however, as many of the problems in housing stem back to conservative policies such as the right to buy and the fact that councils were barred from spending any of the money they made on the subsequent sales to help upgrade the poorer housing stock they were left with.
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"our revenge will be the laughter of our children" bobby sands MP

"there is no equality in a society that stands upon the political and economic bog, if only the strongest make it good or survive" bobby sands MP