Dispatches from CIH Housing Brighton 2024

The state of the nation 

The keynote session kicking off the conference on Wednesday heard from Gavin Smart, chief executive of the CIH, Francesca Albanese, executive director of policy and social change at Crisis, and Richard Donnell, executive director at Houseful, who highlighted the unfairness of the property market and the need to build homes.

Ms Albanese set out the dire situation the country is facing around homelessness, including the latest statistics which showed 145,000 children were living in temporary accommodation in December, a 12% rise on the same point last year.  

Rough sleeping has also seen the steepest rise in one year since 2010. Ms Albanese said that Crisis’ services are seeing large increases in demand and this has rapidly increased in the past 12 months. 

She said social housing supply is one of the key drivers of rising homelessness and we need more homes. She said that without great ambition from the government, the charity’s forecast showed homelessness will continue to rise. By 2041, 300,000 households will be experiencing the worst forms of homelessness, the equivalent to the population of Wigan.

This was echoed by Mr Smart, who said it is difficult for politicians to make change “when all the costs are loaded upfront and all the benefits come later”. 

He added: “And the longer that cycle continues  the bigger the problem becomes. So part of what we need actually is a consensus across the housing and homelessness space saying to our politicians, ‘Be braver’. Look for a cross-party consensus, this is a thirty-year problem, a 50-year problem in the making. 

“You are not going to do it in one electoral cycle, it’s not good enough to say, ‘We’re not going to do it, the payback doesn’t come for us.’”

The sector’s response to rising homelessness: a holistic and person-centred approach

Following the keynote was a session focused on homelessness, in which the conference heard from a panel made of up people representing Hastings Borough Council, English Rural Housing Association, Justlife, and the Centre for Homelessness Impact. 

Last year, spiralling temporary accommodation costs put Hastings Council at risk of issuing a Section 114 notice and effectively declaring bankruptcy. “In 2019, we were spending £730,000 a year on temporary accommodation, last year we spent £6.7m,” said Chris Hancock, head of housing at the local authority. 

“We were behind where we should have been in terms of responding to this crisis; we should have put things in place ahead of time to prepare for this. But what it did mean was we were then very heavily reliant on privately procured temporary accommodation,” he explained, adding that the spend in that area was between a quarter and a third of the council’s entire budget. 

However, Mr Hancock told the conference that the council had managed to avoid issuing a Section 114, while still being in a “precarious position”. He said the answer to the crisis is “housing”. Hastings is building homes, looking at regenerating and has an “ambitious” acquisition programme. 

Rory Weal, strategic policy lead at English Rural and chair of the Rural Homelessness Counts Coalition spoke about an initiative that aims to change the perception of rural homelessness. He said rural areas are often perceived as secure and affluent. 

“The reality is a bit different to that,” he stated. He said rural homelessness is often less visible and therefore less supported; rural councils receive 65% less funding per capita than urban areas.

“Our goal as a coalition is to start by shining a light to create that visibility and create the conversation to stop that vicious cycle from continuing,” Mr Weal said.

Simon Gale, chief executive of temporary accommodation support charity JustLife, said that while building more housing is important amid the crisis, a focus on health is vital. 

He explained: “It is the housing issue, for sure, but it’s also around people’s health and well-being, their finances, their work situations, and lots of other issues. 

“So we really try to focus on people’s health care, helping them engage with their appointments with their medication, engaging with the GP, and outpatients etc. 

“And then as part of that, we’re able to then help focus on the holistic areas of their housing pathway, their benefits and their engagement in the community.”

Matthew Wilkins, head of value for money at the Centre for Homelessness Impact, said the organisation has been hearing anecdotally that there has being a rise in complex needs among people facing homelessness.

He said homelessness is now considered a strategic risk for local authorities, in a way that it has not been in the past.

The centre launched a value for money programme last year, the initial focus of which is on temporary accommodation – “where most of the spending on homelessness” is.

“Which is kind of interesting in of itself that most of the money that we spend as a country on homelessness is in dealing with its consequences, rather than preventing it in the first place,” Mr Wilkins stated.

He said said use of temporary accommodation is “not necessarily a bad thing”. “It does mean that we as a society are housing people who otherwise would be street homeless or would be in shelters,” he said, adding that having that safety net “remains something to be proud of”. 

“However, the question is, ‘How can we use that more effectively?’ And for us, a value for money approach is absolutely essential because we’re seeing a surge in demand and what we’ve not seen is a surge in resources.”

Mr Wilkins pointed out the structural issues are “not going to be fixed overnight”, so there is a “very strong need for local authorities and everyone involved in tackling homelessness to consider if they’re using their money as well as they possibly can”. 

He also said the data on people approaching for homelessness support does not always exist around trends and costs and the reason why people are presenting, which “requires quite a sophisticated intelligence gathering process”.

Professionalisation

In a very well-attended session on professionalisation, members of the sector made their views very clear around the government’s proposals for the upcoming Competence and Conduct Standard. 

Panel chair James Prestwich, director of policy and external affairs at the CIH, said: “As always when we put these conferences on, we learn from the sessions that were well attended for future events. This one looks very well attended so it may well be that perhaps we should have put it in a bigger room. But I think what that does indicate is the level of interest in competency and conduct and in professionalism full stop.”

DLUHC launched its consultation on the new standard in February, which then closed in early April. The government is still reviewing responses. 

The proposals were announced in 2023 as part of the Social Housing (Regulation) Act, which is aimed at driving up sector standards post-Grenfell. It will require an anticipated 25,000 senior housing managers to have a Level 4 housing qualification. Senior housing executives will need a foundation degree or Level 5 housing qualification.

However, sector bodies are concerned it is not enough time and have asked for a longer transition period. The CIH and National Housing Federation (NHF) made requests for a three and five-year transition period to complete the mandatory housing qualifications.

It was during the audience questions section that we heard about the issues and challenges around the two-year timeframe, lack of staff and whether the courses would be necessary for someone with years of experience in the job.

Charlotte Hilliard, policy lead for professionalism in social housing at DLUHC, said no decision has been made yet and that the transition period is “still under consideration”.