Inside Housing

Inside Housing: "Success in preventing homelessness across the south east should bolster the case....
Success in preventing homelessness across the south east should bolster the case for housing in the forthcoming comprehensive spending review, according to a government advisor.
Bob Lawrence, a specialist advisor to the Communities and Local Government department’s homelessness directorate, told the conference that councils’ homelessness prevention strategies had ‘re-anchored homelessness in the town halls’.
There have been ‘profound improvements’ in the way homelessness was being tackled, he added.
‘We are going to the comprehensive spending review in 2007 with a good story to tell,’ he said. ‘When the Treasury asks, “what has the extra money achieved?”, we can show them examples of your good work.’
It was ‘almost a given’ that the government’s target of halving the number of households in temporary accommodation by 2010 would be hit, Mr Lawrence said.
‘What is interesting to me is that acceptances per thousand households, which used to be around 1.2 per cent, have now fallen to 0.5 per cent,’ he said.
Caroline Davey, deputy director at homelessness charity Shelter, called on delegates to increase outreach work to people at risk of homelessness, including young people and people on assured shorthold tenancies.
Housing officers needed to give more advice to other groups such as pregnant mothers in antenatal clinics because of the links between pregnancy, birth and domestic violence, she added."