3. Statement by the Minister for Climate Change: The Homelessness Action Plan

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:37 pm on 30 November 2021.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 3:37, 30 November 2021

Thank you, Jenny Rathbone, for those excellent points. And the answer is a really complicated one because, as I said, it really depends on the person that you're talking about, because every individual has a different and complex set of needs. The further away from having had a permanent home they are, the more complex the needs. It isn't just a case of giving you four walls and a roof. If you put me in a flat in the middle of Manchester, where I know no-one, or any other city where I know no-one, and I had no means of support and no furniture, I would be unlikely to sustain my accommodation, and I haven't had all of those experiences. So, we just need to treat people like human beings.

We have done an analysis of the costs of some of the programmes. But in the end, what we've got to commit to is making sure that that individual has the support that they need. And for some people, that works fairly quickly, and for others, it can take—. I've spoken to outreach workers who've been working with people for more than two years, trying to get them to respond to them, gain some trust, even take a cup of tea off them—so deep is the distrust of officialdom or help. But then, during the pandemic, we've had transformational cases as well, with people who came in because of the pandemic suddenly getting into services and their lives are on a different path. And Jonathan, the person in the Western Mail, is the person I met yesterday. If ever you needed proof that this isn't about the individual and their fundamental nature, this is about the experience you have growing up and what your life experience is, and it can be transformed.

So, for example, we have a great pathway in Cardiff prison, where we had a revolving door, as you call it, with people coming in and out all the time. We've been able to work very individually with a number of individuals—that's a very small cohort of them—to just see if it works, and well over 90 per cent of them are now on the path to not coming back and are in permanent housing. So, what we have to do is we have to do what works. So, this isn't about my housing budget; this is about me working with Eluned and other colleagues right across the Welsh Government, using their budgets and their staff to provide the services to people who also have housing problems. If we see it like that, in that holistic way, we take a very different approach and it does work.