Drugs, suicide and murder in city’s broken ‘supported housing’ sector

SOME tenants of badly run supported housing in Birmingham have ‘paid with their lives’ – dying from drug overdoses, suicide or murder, a stark national report said.

The report, following an inquiry by a national cross party group of MPs, should finally be the ‘wake-up call’ the Government needs to act with urgency on the issue, its authors said.

The scathing findings lay bare what city campaigners, MPs, communities, and Birmingham City Council has been highlighting for three years.

It concludes the Government must act now to close loopholes and raise standards in a sector ‘ripe for exploitation’ and ‘in a terrible mess’. The report, by the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities committee, said it was a national issue, with Birmingham among several areas that have become hotspots.

It highlights “the very worst experiences” of vulnerable tenants, including living among, and being the victims of terrible crimes, sometimes at the hands of staff; being raped and sexually harassed by their landlords and staff asking for sexual acts in return for money, food, or better accommodation.

It added: “For other residents, the cost of their exempt accommodation has been their very lives, some people dying of drug overdoses and others even being murdered by fellow residents.”

The sector is also a potential front for money laundering and criminal drugs gangs, according to evidence given by West Midlands Police.

Recent years have seen a dramatic surge in the number of these properties – mostly converted homes in cheap areas.

There are currently 22,000 rooms registered in the sector in Birmingham – double the number three years ago. There were barely any five years ago.

Landlords get a huge premium in housing benefit – often up to four times the standard room rate – on the promise of providing support to highly vulnerable tenants, including survivors of domestic abuse, drug and alcohol addicts, those at risk of homelessness and people with learning disabilities and mental illnesses.

Many have no connection to the city, sent here to live by prisons and probation services, charities and other councils, or in response to adverts promising accommodation for as little as £1 a week. But the legislation governing the sector is so lax that anyone can set up as a provider, with barely any oversight of standards of accommodation or support.

Sharon Thompson, Cabinet Member for Housing and Homelessness for Birmingham City Council, said: “We very much welcome the recommendations in this report which reflects what Birmingham City Council has been saying for a long time”.

The council is backing MP Bob Blackman’s Bill on exempt supported housing, while also bringing forward a council motion to back Crisis charity’s ‘Regulate the Rogues’ campaign aimed at driving out bad landlords and hosting an inquiry into the sector in Birmingham.

For other residents, the cost of their exempt accommodation has been their very lives, some people dying of drug overdoses and others even being murdered by fellow residents