Can landlords help the homeless?
The PDPLA was invited to visit Hope House last month, the homeless hostel operated by the Salvation Army after their presentation to us at our April members meeting. Tony Athill and Alwin Oliver were the only members to attend which was sad but no surprise, we have had many such requests from homeless charities in recent months.
The centre provides temporary accommodation and support for homeless people, usually with a local connection, including people with alcohol, drug and mental health problems. They also provide ongoing support for those who they have helped move on.
They have a few residents who have been through a process and have been assessed by staff to be ready to move out into social housing or the PRS. Vacancies in the former are rare. These residents are effectively bed blocking the acceptance of new residents who would benefit from help. The centre would like more private sector landlords to provide homes for these individuals.
We explained why private sector landlords are increasingly deserting the cheaper end of the market and those on benefits. We warned them that as a result of increased landlord taxation and growing costs of regulation many good landlords are selling stock, in some cases new landlords are entering the market but are only looking at the gross returns and are oblivious of work involved and the hundreds of regulations that will affect them. The staff were enlightened by the points we made and now have a better understanding of the problem from the landlords point of view.
Observations
Some residents clearly have mental health issues and one has to ask whether, if access to mental health services was improved, some of these people would not be in this situation.
The staff and management are very friendly, highly motivated and clearly doing a great job supporting the homeless. They are not your archetypal Salvation Army types.
There are a number of charities and quangos providing support for the homeless and potentially homeless in Portsmouth. The main players are reliant on funding from the local authority. This leads to competition from the different bodies, this may encourage excellence, but will also result in:
- precious resources being wasted on unhelpful reporting and funding applications,
- service providers can change from one year to the next, this confuses the clients and other support workers and the new providers have a steep learning curve.
- service providers may not be funded to support their tenants as they move into the PRS in years to come
- resources being spent on what the politicians want to see rather than on what the experts at the coal face know is required,
- a lack of cooperation between the service providers, this is vital as the homeless people pass from one service to another.
These are not normal commercial services, the hands on staff do what they do altruistically and are unlikely to be motivated by competition.
Some residents are clearly not ready to move to the private rented sector or even social housing but others clearly are and with ongoing support from Hope House should make excellent tenants. If you are interested in working with them contact Lucy Brown on 023 92736544 or