140 homelessness cases a week

BIRMINGHAM City Council is dealing with an average of 140 homelessness cases every week, new figures have shown.

And the most common reason for accessing the services over the past six months has been domestic abuse, it has also been revealed.

The figures, collected since the implementation of the government’s Homelessness Reduction Bill, were revealed ahead of the Housing and Neighbourhood’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee this week.

Papers show that the number of cases the council is dealing with has risen from an average of 110 per week to an average of 140 a week since the bill was introduced in April.

Under the old system people were only classed as ‘threatened with homelessness’ if it was likely that they would be left without a home within 28 days.

However, under the new legislation that period has been extended to 56 days, meaning an increase in the number of people accessing council services.

“The Act has been in effect since April 3, 2018, and up to the end of October 2018 the service has seen 3,928 new cases, all of which have had a housing needs assessment and a personal housing plan completed,” papers from the meeting say.

“The average time taken to carry out the assessment and personal housing plan process is at present around two hours per case.

“The local authority then has a duty to take reasonable steps to prevent the homelessness by helping the applicant to remain in their accommodation or secure alternative accommodation.”

The document also notes that, of the cases presented at the ‘prevention’ stage of the process, only 25 per cent progressed to the ‘relief stage’, where accommodation needs to be found because the person has already become homeless.

Further shocking statistics from the report show that domestic abuse is the largest cause of people accessing council services, with more than 15 per cent of cases citing it as the main reason for their application.

Prior to the new system being introduced it was thought that the biggest contributor to homelessness was private landlords asking for their property back, with 25 per cent of cases thought to arise from this.

However, papers note that this was often masking underlying reasons for someone being at threat of homelessness. For example, a landlord may have let the tenancy run down as they did not want to deal with issues of anti-social behaviour.

As such, landlord’s requesting their property back is the second most common reason for homelessness applications in Birmingham, accounting for 13 per cent of cases.

Other reasons include antisocial behaviour, mental health issues and the breakdown of a relationship with a parent.