§ Mrs. Lena Jegerasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government what advice he has given local authorities on dealing with the problem of homelessness.
§ Mr. Greenwood:Together with my right hon. Friends, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and the Minister of Health, I sent a circular to local authorities on 26th September. The advice it gave stressed the importance of three things in particular:
- (i) preventing homelessness through an early warning system to give information of families who may need help;
- (ii) not separating husbands and wives, or parents and children, when families do become homeless;
- (iii) ensuring that, once families have been taken into temporary accommodation, there are arrangements for them to progress to a permanent home of their own; and that they are neither forced to stay in temporary accommodation indefinitely, nor evicted from it with nowhere to go.
Officers of the three Departments are following up this advice by contact with individual authorities.