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Government’s short-term supported housing plans a ‘backward step’, warn providers
The government’s plan to give funding responsibility to councils for short-term supported housing is a “backward-looking step” that will diminish the rights of residents, a joint briefing from housing providers has warned.
Riverside, St Mungo’s, The Salvation Army and the YMCA – which provide 26% of short-term supported housing in the UK – have issued a briefing setting out their concerns over the government’s plans for the accommodation.
The government intends to give councils funding responsibility for short-term supported housing schemes, such as women’s refuges and homelessness accommodation, through ringfenced grants and is currently consulting on its plans.
Short-term supported housing providers have already warned that this approach could result in a postcode lottery where some councils are keener to fund schemes than others.
In the briefing the four providers said ringfenced council grants “do not provide the same protections and rights” for short-term supported housing residents as those living in long-term supported housing.
The briefing added: “It moves away from a model where service users enjoy the rights of tenants, with housing costs backed by an entitlement-based benefit system… to a system of relatively short-term, scheme-based funding. This is a backward-looking step and a return to an institutionalised model.”
The intention of Universal Credit is to encourage independence among tenants but the providers said the proposal for short term supported housing “is moving in the opposite direction”. A discretionary local funding system “will not provide the assurance required by providers seeking to develop much-needed new schemes or to invest in the necessary upgrading, repairing and/or remodelling of existing schemes – one of the government’s principal objectives of the proposed funding reforms”, the briefing cautioned.
Funders generally lend on a 30-year basis and the providers said the current model of benefit-backed rental income has allowed the sector to borrow “significant sums at highly competitive rates”.
In contrast, local authority contracts generally only last between three and five years, “which will not provide the necessary security of revenue to secure private finance”.
Jenny Luckett, public affairs advisor at Riverside, said some lenders are uneasily eyeing the government’s proposals.
She said: “Even if [the government] doesn’t think there’s a need for vast building programmes with new homeless provision or refuge provision, we borrow on a 30-year cycle, so if we’re borrowing to invest in our buildings and upgrade and remodel and keep them up to standard, we’re not sure we’re going to have the security to do that.
“We’ve been speaking to some of our lenders who have concerns about the proposals. They either wouldn’t lend or would pick certain schemes they would lend against.”
The providers are calling for the funding of short-term supported housing to remain in the main welfare system. They say instead of developing a new funding system, the government should review the administration of Universal Credit, with a particular focus on the speed with which claims are processed.
A Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: “Supported housing provides much-needed support for some of the most vulnerable groups in society.
“Councils will be getting ring-fenced funding from 2020, so they can improve accommodation for those in need. Local authorities are best placed to assess what short-term supported housing is needed, and we are giving them a bigger role in planning provision in their area.
“These reforms will also mean people in supported housing don’t have to worry about paying their rent at a difficult time of their lives.”
