Homelessness (Hansard, 11 June 1992)

§ Mr. Cummings
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many homeless people in the Easington district council area are aged(a) 17 and 18 years, (b) 18 and 19 years, (c) 19 years, (d) 20 years and (e) 20 and 21 years; and what extra resources are being made available to Easington district council to tackle the problem.

§ Mr. Baldry
Local authorities report the number of households for whom they accept responsibility to secure permanent accommodation under the homelessness provisions of the Housing Act 1985 in their quarterly P1(E) return. The quarterly P1(E) returns identify such households by the category of need but not by age. The total number of all households accepted by Easington under these provisions in the fourth quarter of 1991 was 27.
In the second quarter of this year the return was revised to identify for the first time: (i) households in priority need who were accepted as homeless because the household contained vulnerable young person(s) (aged 16 and over) and, (b) young single homeless people who were not in priority need for whom the authority nevertheless agreed to secure permanent accommodation.
Since then, Easington has reported accepting only one such household, in the first of these two categories during the second quarter of 1991.

§ Mr. Milburn
To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will state the number of families accepted as homeless for each housing authority area in England in(a) 1978–79 and (b) 1991–92.

§ Mr. Baldry
Information on homeless households for whom local authorities have accepted responsibility to secure accommodation under the provisions of the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977 and part III of the Housing act 1985 is reported quarterly to the Department —half-yearly before 1984.
The available information can be found in the following publications: Local Housing Statistics: England and Wales", Edition No. 52 (Table 12), acceptance figures for both halves of 1978. 264W Households found accommodation under the homelessness provisions of the 1985 Housing Act: England. Results for the first quarter 1991. Supplementary Tables" (Table 7), number of acceptances in the first quarter 1991. Local authorities' action under the homelessness provisions of the 1985 Housing Act. Supplementary Table", acceptances in the second, third and fourth quarters of 1991.
From the second quarter of 1991 the definition of acceptances was altered to exclude intentionally homeless and the guidance to local authorities on completion of their returns was expanded. The acceptance figures for quarters 2, 3 and 4 of 1991 are not therefore strictly comparable with those for quarter 1, 1991 and earlier years.
Copies are in the Library.