Issue - meetings

1.               That Cabinet approve a drawdown of £50K from the Homelessness Prevention Fund to fund the initiatives set out in Section 2 of this report.

2.               That Cabinet also approve a drawdown of £45k from the Homelessness Prevention Fund to fund two posts in the team (Private Sector Housing Partnership Officer and Lead Officer Private Sector Housing) plus training for officers, in order to ensure that the Council has the resources needed to carry out the initiatives set out in Section 2 of this report.

1.               That Cabinet approve a drawdown of £50K from the Homelessness Prevention Fund to fund the initiatives set out in Section 2 of this report.

2.               That Cabinet also approve a drawdown of £45k from the Homelessness Prevention Fund to fund two posts in the team (Private Sector Housing Partnership Officer and Lead Officer Private Sector Housing) plus training for officers, in order to ensure that the Council has the resources needed to carry out the initiatives set out in Section 2 of this report.

Reason for Decision

To set out a proposal to Cabinet for the drawdown of funds, from grants made to the Council as ‘Homelessness Prevention Funds’, to be used by the Council’s Strategic Housing Service to fund homelessness prevention initiatives.

Implications

Financial

The Strategic Housing Service is proposing a drawdown of £50,000 from the ‘Homelessness Prevention Fund’, which is government grant ring-fenced to be spent on schemes to prevent homelessness.

The £50,000 is the total remaining grant not already committed to spend by the service.  The grants making up this pot are not automatically re-occurring, and therefore unless the Council receives further grants, continuation of these schemes would have to be reviewed in terms of value for money and savings achieved. 

Value for Money

The Council’s Housing Advice and Options team provide advice and options to prevent homelessness in situations where the current home is no longer appropriate.  Where possible (but only where the home is safe), officers will first seek to prevent homelessness by stabilising a household’s current accommodation through mediation with family or a private landlord.

The Council’s private rented sector deposit guarantee scheme ‘Help to Rent’ is the main homelessness prevention scheme available to officers trying to prevent homelessness in situations where the current home is no longer appropriate. 

A household that becomes homeless carries a significant cost to the Council in terms of providing a temporary accommodation placement and managing the licence, investigating the homelessness case, providing welfare and support, and the clearance and void maintenance costs after move-on.   

The private rented sector is very strong in Dacorum and landlords are able to set high market rents that out-price most prospective tenants on low incomes and/or in receipt of benefits. 

Termination of an ‘Assured Shorthold Tenancy’ (AST, the standard form of tenancy used in the private sector) is increasing and is now the main reason for homeless presentations to the Council.  In 2009 and 2015 this reason for homelessness accounted for 11% and 50% respectively of all homeless duties awarded by the Council.

Prevention of homelessness is value for money and the Strategic Housing Service is proposing to allocate funds as follows:

·        £10,000 for a cash incentive scheme to attract landlords to work in partnership with the Council’s Help to Rent scheme.

·        £30,000 to be available to officers for rent in advance/bridging deposit payments;

·        £5,000 to pay for travel arrangements; and

·        £5,000 to cover other emergency provision.

Risk Implications

Rogue private landlords

The Council is aware that among the many good landlords  ...  view the full minutes text for item 11