‘Their largesse is shrinking with their budgets’:
Homelessness legislation as a mechanism of
exclusion in hard times
Paper to HSA Conference University of York , 13th April 2011
Peter Dwyer, Centre for Social Justice Research, University of Salford
Dr Graham Bowpitt, School of Social Sciences, Nottingham Trent University
The Multiple Exclusion Homelessness Programme is jointly funded by the ESRC, JRF, DCLG.
Data that informs this paper comes from project funded under grant RES-188-25-0001
Multiple exclusion homelessness?
A contested and perhaps ill-defined concept.
MEAM (2009) MEHP experience a combination of issues that impact adversely on
their lives, routinely excluded from effective contact with services they need, often
lead chaotic lives that are costly to society.
OUR DEFINITION: someone is experiencing multiple exclusion homelessness if:
They combine a current, or recent (i.e. within the last 12 months), experience of
homelessness (broadly defined to include rough sleeping, living in emergency or
insecure accommodation), with one or more indicators of deep social exclusion.
For example, problematic substance use, chronic ill health (mental or physical),
long-term unemployment, or transitions in institutional public duties of care. They
routinely live in poverty and often lack, for a variety of reasons, supportive close or
familial relationships.
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Researching MEH: an abductive, user participatory
approach
Research considered
Background and trigger factors that lead to homelessness
Strategies for surviving homelessness
Encounters between homeless people and support services
Recruitment and training of formerly homeless volunteers as peer researchers
Input into research design, conduct interviews with homeless people alongside
academic researchers, input via analysis workshops
108 semi structured interviews with MEHP
55 Nottingham, 53 London; 74 male, 34 female
44 interviews with key informants
24 Nottingham, 20 London; 14 Executive/managerial, 30 frontline
Working in 40 organisations (12 public sector, 28 voluntary sector)
Abductive data gathering and analysis of interview transcripts
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Characteristics of the MEHP sample
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What rights do homeless people have?
Under various statutes, local authorities have duties towards people who
– Are homeless
– Are in ‘priority need’
– Have done nothing to make themselves homeless
– Have a ‘local connection’ to the borough in which the application is
being made
The duties involve
– Providing advice and assistance to all homeless households
– Providing temporary accommodation to those in priority need
– Providing permanent accommodation to unintentionally homeless
households in priority need and with a local connection
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Overview of experiences of our homeless
respondents who requested help
35 reported declaring themselves homeless to a local
authority at least once under the legislation.
9
5
7
5
12
were accommodated
7 were judged to be owed a duty
2 were housed even though they did not appear to
be owed a duty
deemed not to be homeless
seen as not in priority need
judged to have made themselves intentionally
homeless
viewed as having no local connection
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Who is homeless?
Housing Act (1996) households are homeless if they
Have no accommodation, either
– At all, or
– Which members can occupy together, or
– Which they have a right to occupy, or
– Which they can reasonably occupy
Are unable to access accommodation
Have nowhere to put a movable home
Accommodation may be unreasonable
– Physical condition; unsuitability; violence; unaffordability;
overcrowding; insecurity
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Why were some of our respondents judged not to
not homeless?
In all cases, respondents were deemed still to be accommodated
because of inadequate evidence to the contrary, e.g.
• Woman with abusive partner who changed the locks on a house
she still owned
– “They (the Council) turned me away because I’d got my own house. ‘I
can’t get in’, and she said, ‘Well you’ll have to get your keys off your
ex-husband.’ I said, ‘I can’t because I don’t know where he lives’.
‘Sorry but you’ve got your own house there’s nothing we can do.’”
(N45, Nottingham)
• Man unable to prove he’d been evicted by his family
– “You go to them (the Council), explain the situation and they are like,
‘We can’t do anything without proof. You need to go back to your
family and get a letter from them saying you have got kicked out.’
They don’t want anything to do with me so how am I expected to get
a letter?” (L40, London)
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Key informants endorse the reported experiences of
those judge not to be homeless
Experience of women fleeing DV confirmed
“Women flee and the Housing Associations or the Local Authority look at
them as having abandoned the property rather than getting rid of him
because he’s the perpetrator of violence and of course a lot of women
don’t want to go to court, so it then becomes an issue about whether
the woman has left because of violence or because of other reasons.”
(LKI 10, Women’s housing organisation, London)
Others confirmed the struggle to be believed
“I’m sure their scepticism is born out of the fact that they simply don’t have
a plague (?) of council houses to hand the keys out to people. They do
have a very limited resource and a lot of people asking for that resource.
They’ve got to find some kind of method to discriminate between the
very needy and not so needy … That seems to have kind of mutated into
an attitude of ‘we don’t believe anybody”. (LKI 11, Welfare rights project,
London)
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Priority need
Under the legislation, priority need groups include the
following:
–
–
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Pregnant women;
Households with children;
‘Vulnerable’ people;
Victims of fire or flood
An applicant may be vulnerable for the following reasons:
–
–
–
–
–
Ill-health or disability
Risk of violence or harassment
Under 18
18-20 and a care leaver
Having spent time in prison, the armed forces or local
authority care
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Homeless respondents who were judged not to be in
priority need
Mostly because they were single and unable to prove vulnerability, despite
Mental illness
“Because I wasn’t pregnant, I wasn’t priority. That’s what they (the Council) came out with. If I
was pregnant, obviously I would have been a priority and I would have had a bed for the night.
Unfortunately, I was on the streets … They don’t consider you’ve had mental health problems.”
(N03, Nottingham, female)
Drink problems
“They (the Council) don’t look at it that way (treating people as ‘vulnerable’), because you can
always get help for a drink problem. For physical or a mental issue, you can’t. Theoretically you
can’t really get a lot of help because it’s something that’s already happened. But alcoholism you
can change, you can change it.” (N33, Nottingham, male)
Domestic violence
“I left my sister’s place because of the problems I had and they (the Council) said I need to book
an appointment and I need to speak to someone on the phone … I tried to explain to the
person that I am homeless at that time, right now. But they didn’t really care … They said you
are not pregnant, you don’t have any issues like mental issues so we can’t help you.” (L35,
London, female)
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Insights from key informants on priority need
Some suggested DV is not enough in itself
“Unless you can show a vulnerability on top of domestic violence then they
have no right to be housed ... They won’t be considered to be a priority
need. Domestic violence itself is seen as a vulnerability, but they will
only become priority need if they can show that they’ve got another
vulnerability as well. So it would only be if we had somebody who had
mental health issues or disability or was elderly or whatever.” (LKI 10,
Women’s housing organisation, London)
But there were tensions with the views of council officials
“We would prioritise our own rough sleepers first. Beyond that, if we had
two people and they were both rough sleeping but the guy who came
from (elsewhere) was significantly in a position of additional
disadvantage - let’s say he had deep vein thrombosis and other medical
problems - that the other rough sleeper did not have, we would
prioritise by need first.” (NKI 9 LA housing manager)
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Intentional homelessness
A person becomes intentionally homeless if he deliberately
does or fails to do anything in consequence of which he
ceases to occupy accommodation which is available for his
occupation and which it would have been reasonable for
him to continue to occupy (Housing Act (1996) s.191)
A deliberate act or failure to act
As a consequence accommodation ceases to be occupied
The accommodation was available to be occupied by the
person
It was reasonable for him to continue to occupy the
accommodation
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Deemed to be intentionally homeless
Abandonment /fleeing for fear of death
“I had my own flat and because I was dealing for the wrong type of people and I got
into a lot of debt over it and it was either leave my flat or get shot. It was really
that steep. So like when I moved out of there, because I came out of it myself,
instead of getting kicked out or getting moved, they (the Council) wouldn’t
actually move me straight away. They turned round and said, ‘Look there’s
nothing we can do because nothing has happened’. My windows had been
through and everything and there had been a couple of bullets going through
them as well, but there was nothing they could have done.” (N39, Nottingham,
male)
Account of illegal eviction not believed by the Council
She [private landlady]actually went to the Council herself and said we voluntarily
made ourselves homeless. Covered her back. That’s why the Council wouldn’t
give us a flat. They wouldn’t even put us up in a half way house. Nothing. For 7
and a half years I lived under a bush in a graveyard. (L3 male London)
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Intentionally homeless
People who abandon are treated as intentionally homeless
“I can see (Council’s) point of view that they’ve found them a bed but it’s just not appropriate
and they make themselves voluntarily homeless because they can’t stay there and
obviously (Council) won’t look at them because they’ve made themselves voluntarily
homeless.” (NKI24, Drug interventions team, Nottingham)
Intentionally homeless due to conviction
You have committed an offence, you have gone to prison, that’s lost you your home
so you are homeless intentionally because you committed an offence so it’s a
legitimate finding under homelessness law but we would often question those
decisions (LKI 14 Housing support manager, ex-offenders project)
Substance dependency non payment of rent
If you look at a lot of this group drug users why they have difficulty getting housing is
because they are considered to have made themselves at some stage in the past
intentionally homeless because they have been given money to spend on rent
and have spent it on something else. (LKI 3 clinical lead drugs/alcohol team)
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Local connection
Establishing a local connection: is often the key to unlocking which LA has a
duty to provide accommodation
Decisions based on: former voluntary residence in the area; current
employment; family associations; other special circumstances.
Unable to establish a local connection no duty owed
“I don’t know anybody in the borough. I ain’t got a doctor. Not on the electoral
roll. Until I get a doctor I’m not good to no-one. I don’t want a flat in
Liverpool … You have to be on the electoral roll before you get a flat. You
can’t get any accommodation unless you’ve got a doctor.” (L48, London,
male)
“I came back down here and the City Council tried to tell me I had no local
connection. I was born here but because I’d been away for more than five
years, even though some of that was in jail and other things, I was back
down here in the same situation as I was up there (Manchester).” (N41,
Nottingham, male)
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Local connection in action
How it appears to work
Local connections is another big issue. The local authority are closing ranks.
Their largesse is shrinking with their budgets. That is effectively what’s
happening. They are employing statutes to limit the availability of
housing to people outside their locality. So we frequently challenge that
decision (NKI 7 Probation officer)
If you haven’t got a local connection they won’t take responsibility for you.
Obviously you can fight that, you can argue that. Its very difficult to
prove some points of local connection. (NKI 10 Day centre worker)
How it’s supposed to work
You can’t be turned down for accommodation because you don’t have a
local connection. What they (the Council) have to do is assess you, make
a definition of whether you are in priority need, provide you with a
resource while they connect you back to the borough where your local
connection is. They can’t just say even though you are in priority need …
this isn’t your local connection area, so clear off. (LKI 13, Homelessness
co-ordination organisation, London)
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Conclusions and potential ways forward
Single, multiply excluded homeless people are still treated as ‘non-priority’ by
Councils exacerbating MEH
Fleeing violence is appears to be no protection against being regarded as
‘intentionally homeless’
Councils still turn people away who have no ‘local connection’, despite
assertions to the contrary.
The Coalition’s Localism agenda is likely to reinforce exclusive elements of policy
i.e. no local connection
Regional and Pan London approaches?
Circumventing the rules for some of the most excluded e.g. 205, personalisation
approaches for the most excluded
The measures to extend statutory rights currently being adopted in Scotland
should be extended to England on an experimental basis, as the only
effective response to the housing aspect of multiple exclusion homelessness.
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