Absolutely. The costs of getting this wrong are far greater than the costs of the up-front preventative measures.
The sector is unanimous, and it is a recommendation of the all-party parliamentary group on ending homelessness, that adult safeguarding reviews should become the norm for any adult rough sleeper who dies on the streets. We have them for children’s services, but there is not an automatic assumption that they will be done for adults, and there should be. A review should be done in a no-blame culture, so we can identify what interventions might have helped to prevent that death on the streets. I hope the Minister will commit to that today.
I have an example of a really difficult case. A woman whose sister had died in Ghana came to my surgery. The day she left to go to her sister’s funeral, she wrote to the police, the council, the South London and Maudsley
NHS Foundation Trust, the GP and others begging for help for her grandson. She had looked after her grandson as he grew up—his mum had died and his dad was never on the scene—for as long as she possibly could. However, his mental health had broken down and his behaviour became too much, so he was supported elsewhere, in sheltered accommodation.
What happened next was tragic. The grandson was not getting the mental health support that he needed. His behaviour became erratic in the shelter and problematic for other residents, and he was evicted. He was beaten to death in Walworth. He had stolen someone’s bike and pawned it, and the people he had stolen it from found him and beat him up, and he died. The morning his grandmother got back from Ghana, the police knocked on her door to tell her he was dead, despite the fact she had begged everyone to provide an extra, small intervention that could have prevented such an awful occurrence. Personally, I think the mental health services should have done more in that case, but we need to learn from incidents like that, to make sure that all avoidable deaths are actually made avoidable.
There is a question mark: are homeless people worth less, somehow? They have been made to feel that way. Being homeless is a dehumanising experience and the lack of human contact—even eye contact—is something that comes out in homeless group sessions, when we talk to homeless people directly.
There have been some bizarre policies. At Poole Borough Council the solution to rough sleeping was to introduce public space protection orders, which imposed fines on homeless people. Unsurprisingly, those fines were not paid when the council attempted to impose them, because homeless people do not have much money. It was a bizarre attempt at policy, but perhaps not as bad as the Cardiff Conservative councillor, Kathryn Kelloway, who was so outraged at the indecency and indignity of homelessness that she called for homeless people’s tents to be torn down—not because they had new homes, but just to take away their tents. That was shameful. She was suspended by the Welsh Conservatives, but less well publicised is the fact that she has already been readmitted, which speaks volumes.
Perhaps I have talked for too long, but I want to touch on some other issues. The private rental sector is the fastest growth area for people becoming homeless. Lots of organisations, some represented here today, are calling for no-fault evictions to be scrapped and section 21 reformed. There are lots of reasons why I want more rent controls and longer tenancy agreements to try to prevent some of this, as well as an increase in expenditure on help to rent, to try and get more people into the sector where possible.
Hon. Members have already referred to domestic violence, which I will touch on. The Government statistics, which I have taken from the House of Commons Library briefing, are astonishing. From April to June 2018, 4,500 households were owed a statutory homeless duty where the reason for losing their last settled home was
“violent relationship breakdown with partner or associated persons.”
That is 8% of all households owed homeless duty. The Women’s Aid annual survey 2017 found that housing was the most frequent co-presenting issue for women experiencing domestic abuse, above health, justice, finance and children.
The crisis in refuge funding has been driven by the demise of the Supporting People programme. If there is one specific programme that should be rebuilt, it is that one. In 2015-16, one in 10 homeless acceptances were due to domestic violence. Half of St Mungo’s female clients have experienced domestic violence and one third said domestic violence had contributed to their homelessness.
There is an issue around the implementation of the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017. Fleeing from domestic violence does not automatically make women a priority need. They still have to meet the vulnerability threshold in the legislation to meet the criteria for assistance. That needs addressing, because councils are getting this wrong. The Women’s Aid project No Woman Turned Away looked at the reasons given to women for not getting homelessness assistance—we should think about the circumstances in which councils are doing this—which included the woman needing proof of abuse. Some women were deemed to be intentionally homeless as a result of being beaten up by a partner. That is not an acceptable excuse to try and deny someone the support they need. Some were even told to return to the violent partner, rather than get help from their council. Those circumstances must change.
The “no recourse to public funds” policy is completely unacceptable on every level. Either we believe in human rights or we do not. NRPF denies people equality of opportunity and rights to family life. I will give some examples, but for those who do not know, let me first explain that it used to apply only to illegal immigrants to the UK—to those who had no lawful reason to be in this country. The coalition Government, to their shame, then extended it to families, including those with British-born children; there are now 50,000 British-born children, born to parents legally in this country, who are not entitled to any public support. The circumstances into which those families are driven are horrific, and in some cases they are the result of Home Office error.
On Monday, Mr Musari sent me a message. I am godfather to his son; when we first met in 2015, he was about to become homeless. He had been working, paying tax and paying private rent, but the Home Office told him to stop—apparently we did not want him working, contributing or paying tax—and he was made homeless while his wife was pregnant with their third child. They were put through the wringer so much that he nearly killed himself; he said that he thought his children would get more help if he were dead. Only on Monday, almost three years later, was the decision finally overturned, granting him access to public funds—it has taken that long to correct a Home Office error.
Let me give one more example from my constituency. A woman was told seven years ago, in court, that she had a criminal record and did not meet the “person of good character” criterion, so she would be denied access to public funds. She has just got her new biometric card, but it has taken until now to overturn the decision, because it was a case of mistaken identity. She has never committed a crime, in this country or anywhere else—not so much as nicking a pint of milk of from a supermarket, which I am sure we have all done. She too has been through the wringer: she and her son, now 10, were made
homeless and were reliant on friends and family. That boy was three years old when this situation began as a result of a Home Office mistake.
The all-party parliamentary group has made recommendations, including reinstating access to legal aid so that people in those circumstances do not have to wait three and a half years, or seven years, to overturn awful erroneous decisions by the Home Office. It is unacceptable. The Zambrano restrictions, which deny people access, should be lifted for anyone with a dependant. No child should be put through this process as a result of where their parent may have come from.
It is completely unacceptable that Surrey Square Primary School in my constituency has 40 children in those circumstances. If my daughter Esme were old enough, those children could have been born in the bed next to hers in St Thomas’s hospital, but they are denied access to the same support that Esme might qualify for. The children get this. They understand how unfair it is to victimise their classmates and friends. The Government are missing what this divisive and horrific policy is creating in our schools, especially in areas such as my constituency.
I will touch on the criminal justice system, which a couple of hon. Members have already mentioned, and the cost of getting this policy wrong, with specific reference to criminal justice. I hope the Minister sees her role as a cross-Government one, because there is not just one solution to this; it touches on many other areas. The cost to the taxpayer of getting this wrong is extortionate, through councils, the NHS and mental health services, which we have already talked about. Rough sleepers experience higher levels of certain health conditions that result in hospitalisation, and that is not free.
The response to a question I put to the Ministry of Justice revealed some figures that I think are shocking. The total number of people going into prison has fallen slightly since 2016, but the proportion of homeless people going to prison has risen from 23% to 27%.