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

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:31 pm on 3 June 2020.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 4:31, 3 June 2020

Yes, Darren, I'm very happy to work with them. Actually, local authorities already work with a large range of veteran organisations, and, as I said, Hannah has met with a very large number of them. I myself have met with a slightly smaller number of them. So, we're very happy to engage and signpost people to the help that veteran support agencies can supply. And that's a huge range, as you know and as I know. There's a huge range of support, from counselling and collaborative support to simply friendship, to actual accommodation, to a full range of mental health, substance abuse and so on support. So, I'm very grateful to that particular section of the third sector that provides that support.

Local authorities are signposting people who are eligible for that support to them, it's just that we don't centrally collect the data. So, I don't want you to think that we don't care, because we do care, it's just that we haven't seen any need to centrally collect how many people that is. I expect if you asked the local authorities they would know individually. I'm happy to investigate whether it's an easy thing for us to do. I would be reluctant to divert resource into it, but if it's something that we could do relatively easily, I'm certainly happy to look into that. It's just not something we've done centrally at the moment.