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

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:13 pm on 3 June 2020.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 4:13, 3 June 2020

Thank you for that series of questions. I'll do my best to cover them all. Certainly we do not want to leave any group of people out, and we have been very successful in not doing so during the first stage of the homelessness action that we have taken. As I said very specifically in my statement, the number of people that we've housed includes people who were not rough sleeping but who were in very precarious accommodation—temporary accommodation if you like, 'sofa surfers' as they're known.

We don't have information on the number of veterans included because we don't collect it in that way, but we're not aware that there are any people left out from that, and we have been running a campaign to make sure that people who are sofa surfing recognise themselves as homeless and come forward. And we've been very deliberately doing that in order to make sure that we don’t face a deluge at the end of the pandemic. And we have had a steady stream of people coming forward to receive help throughout this crisis. It wasn’t a fixed number at the beginning who then got housed—we've had people presenting on a daily basis throughout the pandemic that we've been able to accommodate as a result of working so closely and in collaboration with a number of partners, including our local authorities—well, primarily our local authorities. I mean, those include veterans, of course, but they include other people presenting: victims of domestic abuse, people who are displaced by family or a relationship breakdown and a number of other things—the things that cause homelessness in the first place. Those things have continued throughout the pandemic and our partners have stepped up to the plate of providing accommodation for all of those groups, I can assure you, including veterans. And, of course, we do work very closely with a number of veterans' groups. My colleague, Hannah Blythyn, is the Minister for the armed forces and she has a range of very regular meetings with a series of veterans groups, and I myself have met a fair number of them as well; we're very concerned to understand the specific circumstances.

In terms of the housing supply, it is at this point in time possible to move in Wales if you need to do so because of any emergency circumstances or if, for example, your sale would fall through if you did not. I've answered a very large number of enquiries from people who haven't understood that, so I'd just like to make that very clear. In the next phase of review—so, as you know, we review the regulations every three weeks and we begin to work on them the second the last review is over—we're looking to see what else we can do in the housing market around things like being able to view empty properties, allow people who want to find a tenant for an empty property to do that and so on. We're going, probably, I think—well, the review's underway, so it's impossible to say for sure—but we're probably, I think, going to stop short of allowing people to view tenanted or occupied properties for obvious reasons, as there have been a number of issues across the border with that. But I take your point, Caroline. Obviously, we want the market to work.

I'm also very concerned for renters who find themselves in circumstances where they can't afford their rent any longer and they would like to find somewhere else that they may be able to afford, to be able to facilitate that as soon as we possibly can. And I'll take this opportunity to say that, throughout this crisis, we've worked very hard with all our social landlords to make sure that they turn around what are called 'voids', so empty properties, as fast as possible to make sure that they're available for permanent housing for people who need that housing, whether they're coming through the homelessness stream or because they're tenants who are looking to move to different and more suitable accommodation. So, we've certainly been doing that.

In terms of the housing supply, again, construction has been allowed as long as you're able to socially distance throughout this period and much construction has gone on. We certainly have seen a lot of social residential house landlords, so RSLs and councils continue with their house building and we know that a number of SMEs continue to build for that market because that gives them a cashflow that they would otherwise not have had and we've been encouraging that. I'm very happy to do that. And, of course, we speak very regularly to the house builders associations around their needs in this crisis and how we can keep that part of the market going. 

And then, in terms of our route out of this crisis, of course, all of you will have heard me talk about the need to ensure a green housing-led recovery and we're very keen to do that to make sure that we build the social housing that we need for the future in Wales so that we make sure that homelessness is, indeed, rare, brief and unrepeated.