Homeless People

Part of 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Public Services – in the Senedd at 2:26 pm on 11 July 2018.

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Photo of Rebecca Evans Rebecca Evans Labour 2:26, 11 July 2018

I thank you very much for that question, and I completely agree with you about the worrying trend in terms of homelessness, particularly rough-sleeping. But I think we can be proud of the record that we do have in terms of prevention. I gave you some of the figures of the thousands of people who've had homelessness prevented and relieved in your region, and the figure now across Wales is 14,000 families, which I think is something to be celebrated. I know that other countries are looking at our legislation really carefully to see what they can learn from us. But, nonetheless, as long as there is homelessness, and as long as there is rough-sleeping, then clearly we need to be doing more work in partnership with those local authorities and our other partners.

In terms of support for people who are leaving the armed forces and for veterans, I know that the housing pathway has been in place and has had some success, but I've also been having some discussions recently with representatives of the Royal British Legion in terms of what more we can do to be supporting people who are veterans and also people leaving the armed forces, and also their families as well, because often they find themselves in difficult positions regarding housing, and potentially facing homelessness when divorces happen and so on. So, it is a complex picture, but one that we are very much engaged with and we are keen to see what more we can do to support veterans.