Many councils have serious concerns about whether they can provide adequate emergency accommodation during the cold weather, warns LGA

New report highlights that some councils face a choice between leaving people sleeping rough, or using night shelters which risk spreading COVID-19

Many councils have serious concerns about whether they can provide adequate emergency accommodation during the cold weather, the Local Government Association (LGA) has warned.

In Lessons learnt from councils' response to rough sleeping during the COVID-19 pandemic, the LGA examines information from a range of councils in different parts of the country which were experiencing different issues with respect to homelessness and rough sleeping, and also looks at the responses to the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis and homelessness by the UK devolved governments.

Highlighting that the success of 'Everyone In' demonstrated that, given the mandate and funding, councils (working with their partners) have the means to end the vast majority of rough sleeping, the LGA identifies key issues to be addressed going forward - 

• people with no recourse to public funds - while work to assist people in resolving immigration status and in finding employment was successful for some councils, there usually remained a proportion for whom there was no solution, and in some areas people without settled immigration status represent a significant proportion of those at risk of sleeping rough;
• shortage of affordable housing was an inevitable blocker in finding move on accommodation - there remains a need for more genuinely affordable one-bed accommodation in both the public and private rented sectors, given housing benefit and universal credit limits;
• the Everyone In exercise was not adequate to maintain long term reductions in rough sleeping in most areas - while there was enthusiasm for maintaining a more proactive approach to accommodating rough sleepers and those at risk, the resources were not there in most councils to be able to achieve this, especially in the light of concerns about increasing homelessness and temporary accommodation costs linked to the economic impacts of the pandemic;
• ability to provide adequate cold weather provision - many councils were concerned that they would not be able to provide an adequate response during the winter in a way which did not increase the risk of COVID-19 infection; and
• accessing appropriate health services, particularly mental health services - there was a lack of specialist primary care services working in homelessness in many parts of the country and a continued wider lack of mental health resources relative to demand.

Commenting on the report, LGA housing spokesperson Councillor David Renard said - 

'Many councils have serious concerns about whether they can provide adequate emergency accommodation during cold weather and not increase the risk of COVID-19 spreading. As a result, some face an incredibly difficult choice of whether it would be better to leave people sleeping rough on the streets or bringing them indoors where they could be infected.

The funding announced by the Government so far has been helpful for councils, but it is unlikely to be enough to ensure that people sleeping rough get the support and protection they need this winter. The Everyone In initiative was a significant success, with councils acting rapidly to get the vast majority of people sleeping rough off the streets and into safe and suitable accommodation. But a period of extreme and severe weather could seriously jeopardise councils’ ability to protect people sleeping rough from COVID-19 during this second wave.'

For more information, see Some rough sleepers could be forced to stay out in the cold this winter to avoid risk of infection from local.gov.uk