7. Statement by the Minister for Housing and Regeneration: Investing in Early Intervention and Cross Government Approaches to Tackle Youth Homelessness

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:13 pm on 20 November 2018.

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Photo of Rebecca Evans Rebecca Evans Labour 5:13, 20 November 2018

Thank you very much for those questions. It is a shame that they do fail to recognise the huge amount of work that has already been going on that has been supported by Government over a long period, not least through the Supporting People grant, which I know both our parties have a particular interest in. So, one example would be the Swansea Young Single Homeless Project. That is an organisation where young people are valued for the contributions they make, and they have fixed-site services called Drws Agored, providing an emergency service for nine homeless young people. So, that's very much at the sharp end of preventing those young people from turning to rough sleeping. And they also offer floating support services to vulnerable young people up to the age of 25, who require some support to maintain their tenancy. That's just one example. I've been to see Llamau also to see the fantastic work that they're doing, also funded by Welsh Government.

So, I think it is unfair to suggest that, all of a sudden, we've woken up to the challenge of youth homelessness. Actually, work has been going on in the area of youth homelessness for many years, and we've seen a youth engagement and progression framework every single year, reducing the number of children and young people who are not in employment, education or training. So, I think it does do a disservice to the people working day in, day out in this sector to try and ensure that young people don't become homeless, and the investment that Welsh Government has been making in this agenda for a long period.

So, in terms of how we would want to measure those targets, actually I think we need to be realistic and expect, potentially, an increase in the number of people we do identify as being homeless in the short term. That would be as a result of that communications activity that we would be doing and the awareness raising that we would be doing in terms of helping those people working in youth services, in schools and so on, to identify the risk signs that a young person might be rough sleeping. I know many of us were at the launch of the End Youth Homelessness Cymru campaign and we heard there very much and very directly from young people with personal experience of rough sleeping how they felt that the signs that they could be rough sleepers weren't even noticed by those people working most closely with them. 

On the issue of priority need, I've already committed to commissioning a review of priority need—I understand very much the issues there relating to priority need. However, I would say that young people are very much already considered to be in priority need. So, young people aged 16 or 17, by definition, are considered a priority need, and those between 18 and 20 who are at particular risk of sexual or financial exploitation are also considered to be priority need, as are those people up to the age of 20 who've spent time in care. I'm very interested in what our review of priority need will show us, but those young people are currently considered priority need. And also the issue of local connection will be considered as part of that wider review of priority need, as I've already told the Chamber previously. 

In terms of input from the wider sector, the ministerial advisory group—or the ministerial task and finish group, I should say—has representation very, very widely across the sector from all organisations, from the youth justice sector to local authorities to the End Youth Homelessness Cymru campaign, and police and so forth. So, it is widely represented in the sector and does very much respond to that point that tackling youth homelessness does have to be a cross-sectoral responsibility. 

In terms of housing first, those pilots are ongoing. We have now identified additional funding, which I announced recently, for some trailblazer projects that are taking that housing first model to the next level by ensuring that they are working very closely with mental health services, with domestic violence services and with substance misuse services as well, to try and ensure more of an integrated approach to meet those needs of people.

Just to finish on this particular point, the housing first network has produced a housing first standards document, which we have agreed now in Welsh Government. So, for a service to consider itself as housing first, it must meet all of those standards, because one of my concerns was that there are some excellent projects out there calling themselves housing first, not adhering to the Welsh Government's housing first principles, and that was a concern. So, whilst rapid rehousing models are very much in need, housing first isn't for everyone, but we do need to stay true to those principles of housing first if we intend to call those projects housing first.