Homelessness (Hansard, 22 June 1990)

§ Mr. Michael Spicer

The Government are seriously concerned about people sleeping rough on the streets of London and other cities. The problem of rough sleeping in small but concentrated numbers is one that has begun to affect major cities throughout the western world. It has developed for complex reasons, involving in particular the break-up of families and other social ties.

This is placing substantial new pressures on hostel accommodation, especially in London, despite the Government's hostels initiative which has created nearly 25,000 hostel spaces throughout the country since 1981 and the availability in London of 23,000 hostel spaces. Most hostel dwellers in the past have moved on to ordinary accommodation in the private sector, and will continue to do so. We are already encouraging householders to offer lodgings and we have put a number of new policies in place to help revitalise the private rented sector. We are considering what further initiatives to take in this field.

In addition, I am announcing today that we are bringing forward a special programme of resources to provide additional subsidised accommodation for single homeless people. This will take the form of direct access accommodation for people on the streets, and of "move-on" accommodation to provide longer-term housing for people in hostels.

We will allocate £15 million for these new initiatives in the present financial year; the provision of resources for future years will be discussed in the public expenditure survey process in the next few months. Effective use of these new resources requires close co-operation between a number of Government Departments and other agencies. Police officers working on the streets will point those sleeping rough towards the new accommodation being made available.

The success of the strategy also depends very much on the co-operation of the voluntary bodies active in dealing with single homeless people and on co-operation with housing associations and the local authorities. We have had informal preliminary discussions with the voluntary groups and we will now talk to them and to the London boroughs urgently about the provision of both direct access and "move-on" accommodation. It is essential that we should ensure that any additional accommodation provided is well directed and meets acceptable standards, but that we do not create a magnet to attract more people into sleeping rough.

We also intend to discuss with the voluntary groups concerned the possibility of establishing a special fund to enable people living in hostels to get over the first hurdle of finding a deposit to gain access to rented accommodation. I hope that we will be able to secure the co-operation of voluntary groups in providing more counselling for people who have been sleeping on the streets. I hope, too, that it will be possible to enlist the support of the private sector in providing advice and support to help single homeless people to obtain jobs, making full use of the range of employment services and training provision which can be made available.

Those resources are additional to the allocation of £250 million that we have provided for local authorities and housing associations to house homeless families this year and next and to this year's programme of £2 million for voluntary bodies which provide advice and practical help to homeless and potentially homeless people. These special programmes in turn supplement £3 billion a year support 740W for local authority housing revenue accounts and a programme of expenditure on housing associations which is rising over the next two years to almost £1.7 billion a year.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Health is announcing a separate initiative today. It is designed to address the particular needs of young people who are sleeping rough or might be tempted to do so. He will also announce soon an initiative to help homeless mentally ill people.

The Government are determined that there should be no excuse for sleeping out on the streets. Emergency accommodation will be made available. Sleeping rough is unacceptable. It is unhealthy and often dangerous. We must see an end to the concentrations of people sleeping out in city centres.