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North Wales Regional Homelessness Strategy

Published: 14/12/2018

Flintshire County Council’s Cabinet will be asked to adopt the North Wales Regional Homelessness Strategy and support the priority actions in the Flintshire Homelessness Local Action plan when they meet on 18 December.

North Wales Councils have developed a regional strategy and a high level action plan, with local action plans in each county. 

The homelessness strategy objectives are to prevent homelessness and ensure suitable accommodation and satisfactory support is available for those who are homeless.

The region has signed up to the common themes of People, Homes and Services.

Each authority has developed its own local action plan based on the themes within the regional strategy but which reflect local priorities.  The local plan in Flintshire has identified priority actions to tackle and prevent homelessness in the county.

Flintshire County Council’s Cabinet Member for Housing, Councillor Bernie Attridge, said:

“The aim of this strategy is to address the root causes of homelessness, whether that be rough sleeping, reducing the numbers on the housing waiting list, reducing the numbers of sofa surfers, and any other type of homelessness, with the ultimate goal of ending it altogether in North Wales.

“Our local action plan will target homeless prevention funding and support the development of the Supporting People Commissioning Plan.”

The common themes within the strategy and the Flintshire Local Plan are:

People (youth homelessness, rough sleepers, complex needs and prison leavers) 

• End youth homelessness by developing a multi-agency approach to homeless prevention for young people; develop specialist provision for young people who are homeless.

• Prevent rough sleeping by better understanding the potential for it in Flintshire and establish a better understanding of the services required.

• Managing complex needs by identifying the challenges and gaps in current provision; delivering services in psychologically informed environments.

• Ensuring suitable accommodation and support for prison leavers through a more co-ordinated approach for people leaving custody; continued commitment to the Prisoner Resettlement Post and develop a reciprocal agreement across the region.

• Contribute to the Armed Forces Covenant steering group and continue to evaluate whether housing and homeless policies and approaches support the commitments within the Armed Forces Covenant.

Homes (housing first, improved access to accommodation, temporary accommodation)

• Develop pilot projects to test housing first principles and share best practice across the region.

• Improve access to accommodation by improving access to the private rented sector; ensure new build social housing contributes to meeting the demands for housing homeless people; develop tenancy support for landlords and mediation to sustain tenancies.

• Explore innovative solutions to reduce the cost of temporary accommodation; undertake a review of existing temporary accommodation linked to demand.

 Services (prevention, mitigation of welfare reform, health)

• Promote the work of the supporting people programme and ensure there is a pathway of services to meet a range of needs; prevent evictions from social housing through the pilot support project, improved pre-tenancy work and a two week rent campaign in 2019; consider non eviction or exclusion policies in certain settings.

• Develop a collaborative approach to reducing the impact of welfare reform on working age claimants affected by Universal Credit.

• Develop closer working relationships with Health and Social Services including protocols for flexible funding, mental health and hospital discharge.