RBKC residents have up to tomorrow to give their feedback by completing this survey here which will go some way to help formulate our council’s housing policies on homelessness, rough sleeping and housing support.
THINK support these and have made some points at the end of this post as well as in the survey. We encourage our local readers to complete the survey, give feedback and share.
The ten key points across four broad areas from RBKC are :
Preventing residents from becoming homeless and assisting them when they become homeless
1- Giving residents the power and ability to solve problems by refreshing and personalising the advice and information we provide when people may he facing homelessness.
2. Make sure we have the right solutions and ensure we are maximising all pathways into appropriate and settled accommodation
Providing suitable temporary accommodation for homeless households
3..Improve our provision and procurement of high quality temporary accommodation for homeless households
4. Ensure a range of settled accommodation and support is available to homeless households that we have a duty towards when homelessness can’t be prevented.
Reducing and working towards the elimination of rough sleeping
5. Prevent residents from rough sleeping in the first place
6 Helping residents that are sleeping in the streets for the first time off the streets for good
7. Support entrenched rough sleepers off the streets for the long term
Working with partners to prevent homelessness earlier
8 Look at the wider causes of homelessness in the borough and develop solutions through early identification and intervention
9.Make our housing services more visible and accessible to all residents and better communicate what we can and cannot offer
10. Work with partners and other housing providers to develop more effective interventions and solutions to homelessness through earlier identification and intervention.
A few points from us on this:
These points are all encouraging and admirable but perhaps rather ambitious considering that Housing needs and support services in our borough are at best, stretched. We really hope that RBKC plans to provide increased funding in order to meet these points.
We hope that with regards to the last point, that our council will look further into hidden homelessness in the borough – which is more commonplace here than some would think.
We are also concerned that there appears to be no commitment to ending the “Temporary Accommodation Lottery” which often means that households in very similar circumstances receive very different accommodation – ie someone getting temporary housing in the borough while another person gets sent to the other end of London when both have identical housing points and needs.
We also believe that our council needs to have a written commitment to housing residents of this borough in the borough first.
We are pleased to see that our council wants to work with other housing providers but there are still very few Housing Association properties being advertised on the Home Connections website. Also including more HA homes in nearby areas which are just outside the borough such as in Westminster or im Hammersmith amd Fulham just for example, on the Home Connections register would be helpful to some homeless households too
Some THINKers have direct experiences of living in temporary accommodation and we are concerned about the safety and wellbeing of residents, living there. We would also like to see a written commitment and increased help and support ftom the council regarding the safety of residents placed in TA. We also know of cases of residents becoming homeless after leaving TA in which they did not feel safe in after receiving no help and support from the council.
With some cases around homelessness prevention, residents often receive better help and advice from the Citizen’s advice Bureau or their local Law Centre – such as North Kensington Law Centre or the Nucleus Law Centre in Earl’s Court – than they do from Kensington Town Hall.
THis Is North Kensington 