Council amends temporary accommodation policy following ombudsman decision

It comes after the ombudsman ordered the council to review how it takes account of its Equality Act duties when considering the suitability of temporary accommodation for homeless families. 

“The limited room, lack of cooking facilities and need to move frequently caused significant instability to the family, caused his children to miss school and led to distress to his family, particularly to his disabled children,” according to the decision report. 

The ombudsman found that the moves put the children at a “particular disadvantage”. The council’s policy for providing temporary accommodation states that “some priority” will be given to providing accommodation within the borough where an applicant’s children have special educational needs and attend a school in the borough. 

One of the children’s education, health and care plans named a school in the borough, “but there is no evidence that any additional priority was afforded to the family to be accommodated in the borough”. 

“Based on the information the council provided, we found it did not have sufficient regard to its duty under the Equality Act to prevent indirect discrimination to Y and Z. This was fault,” the ombudsman concluded.

The council’s current temporary accommodation placement policy was approved in October 2016. 

The report said: “During the policy’s development, an equalities impact assessment was prepared which undertook assessments of how the new policy might affect each individual household in temporary accommodation. 

“The policy was also designed to ensure that priority for in-borough accommodation was given to exceptional cases.”

The policy also gives priority for any other special circumstance that would be taken into account, including any particular needs of the children in the household not already identified. 

“The combination of these criteria would, if the council had had alternative accommodation available to allocate, have meant the complainant would have been placed in-borough,” the report said. 

It said: “However, the main part of the complaint is around the changing location and placement in bed and breakfast accommodation. 

“While the current policy would partly address the changing location issue by giving them priority to at least remain in-borough, the policy does not set out the type of temporary accommodation a household might be placed in.”

According to the report, at the time the policy was approved, the council rarely placed people in bed and breakfast accommodation “except in rare emergency placements”.

The suitability of different types of accommodation was “set out in the 2018 Homelessness Code of Guidance and other legislation/guidance which the council was legally required to use”. 

“However, with a reduction in the supply of self-contained accommodation, longer-term placements into bed and breakfasts have become commonplace across London. 

“To avoid any doubt, it is therefore recommended that this guidance is added to the current temporary accommodation placement policy and a commitment confirming that the council will follow this when deciding on the use of bed and breakfast accommodation,” it said. 

Sarah Williams, cabinet member for housing services, private renters and planning, told Inside Housing that the ombudsman case “highlights once again the extreme challenges faced by Haringey and other boroughs responding to the worsening housing crisis in London”. 

She said: “Despite being one of the best-performing councils for homelessness prevention, we are seeing record homelessness applications due to a toxic combination of cost of living pressures, a rise in evictions from the private sector and landlords quitting the market because of high interest rates.

“We are doing what we can with limited resources to pick up the pieces for thousands in need.   

“We have an extensive plan in place and any changes made will help us address rising demand and shrinking supply, so we rely less on hotel accommodation, as well as continuing with our commitment to building 3,000 homes at council rent. 

“But fundamental change is needed, including more central government support for struggling families, strong protections for private renters at a national level to prevent evictions and the financial help we need to deliver the number of genuinely affordable homes our residents desperately want to see.”

According to the report, the council has also been developing a hotelier framework in recent months to allow it to transition away from the use of high-cost commercial hotels and towards a block-booked approach with suppliers that specialise in the provision of hotels to meet homelessness need. 

These hotels could have cooking facilities, additional security and cleaning that is unavailable in other hotels.