6. Statement by the Minister for Housing and Local Government: Homelessness

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:28 pm on 3 June 2020.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 4:28, 3 June 2020

Thank you, Vikki. We don't have all of the data in quite the way that you suggest, but I can tell you what we do know. So, first of all, the range of people who are homeless is huge. So, we have people who are only recently homeless because of recent family breakdown or domestic violence incidents or some other such, and there are others who have been homeless for a very long time and have entrenched problems and have come into services for the first time ever. As I said in my statement, we need to capitalise on the fact that they now have had contact with those services and we have been able to engage with them, and we can keep them engaged, and that's been a huge step forward. Previously when working with homeless people, it might take as much as nine months for our dedicated outreach worker to make a trust bond with that person so that they will come in and accept services, and we've been able to accelerate that process for nearly everyone. We do have one or two people who we have not been able to reach, but all of those have dedicated outreach workers working with them with a view to making that happen.

One of the characteristics that I can easily tell you about, though, is that homelessness is associated with poverty, because if you have a family or relationship break-up and you're not poor, then you can find yourself another house. So, it is associated most obviously with economic deprivation. And that's what we need to do: we need to make sure that people have their income maximised, that they have access to the right kind of support for maximising that income and getting back into work where that's an issue, or maintaining their work where that's an issue, because being made homeless can mean that you lose your job, which, of course, makes the situation much worse. So, we have worked very hard with a range of charities and third sector organisations and our social landlords and our private landlords to maximise that kind of support, to make sure that people can sustain their tenancy and therefore maximise their economic ability. As I say, we have wraparound services. I've always said that homelessness is not just about housing, it's about all the other services, and I'm absolutely delighted with the way that those services have come together in this crisis to work. In our summit last week we had contributions from people from all of those services and they were all saying how much they had learned from the collaboration that has been possible and how much they're looking forward to taking that forward. 

So, I have a real sense that this is now possible and that people recognise it. So, I really do think that this time we will be able to make a difference in Wales and make sure that homelessness is rare, brief and unrepeated.