Homelessness — House of Commons, 2016-12-14
Topic: Housing
Marcus Charles Jones (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the Opposition for bringing this important debate to the House. It has given Members across the House an opportunity to discuss a critical issue, and it gives me the opportunity to outline the actions that this Government are taking to meet the challenge This has been a good debate. Time does now allow me to do justice to all the contributions, which were excellent, but I will endeavour to respond to as many of the points as I can within the time available. As my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning stated at the outset, the Government are committed to tackling homelessness. I reiterate that that is a priority for me and for the Government. No one should find themselves without a roof over their head. As my hon. Friend outlined earlier, we are supporting the largest house building programme of any Government since the 1980s, but as many hon. Members have said, homelessness is not just a housing issue. Tackling it requires a collective response at both national and local levels and an unrelenting focus on prevention There are many good examples of early intervention around the country. We want to drive good practice to help all areas learn from the experiences and take on the good practice of the councils that are doing things the right way. To kick-start this, we have launched a £50 million homelessness prevention programme, which takes an end-to-end approach to preventing more people from becoming homeless and helping people to get their lives back on track when they have fallen through the safety net provided. Our programme will mean innovation and collaboration to prevent homelessness Our £20 million grant funding for prevention trailblazer areas will help areas to go further and faster with reform, laying the groundwork for many of the changes that we want to see through the Homelessness Reduction Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman). Those areas will develop and adopt best practice and data-driven approaches to identify people at risk of homelessness and provide them with early support to prevent a crisis Southwark, Newcastle and Greater Manchester—our early adopters—will be taking forward a range of initiatives. Successful projects will involve collaboration between a wide range of services to identify people who are at risk of homelessness and help them well before they are threatened with eviction. Trailblazer areas will test innovative approaches to preventing homelessness to help us build our evidence base on what we know works The £20 million rough sleeping grant fund, which forms part of this programme, will enable local areas to intervene early with rough sleepers before their problems become ingrained and to build a better local multiagency partnership to address people’s underlying problems. Building on the successes of the London rough sleeping social impact bond, the £10 million rough sleeping fund for social impact bonds will allow local partnerships to work with some of the most entrenched rough sleepers, focusing on getting them into accommodation and using personalised support to address their complex needs.