Responding to what people need

Commitment sought: People at risk of or experiencing homelessness will have their housing and support needs assessed and met.

Under current legislation local authorities are required to undertake a housing needs assessment, including people who are homeless, every three years. In reality, for people who are homeless, this is often little more than a 'head count'. In recent years local authorities have also been asked to do provisional assessments of housing need; the results have been of mixed quality throughout the country.

The result is that people maybe classified as 'homeless' by their local authority, but this is where it ends. People do not necessarily get a housing needs assessment or a place on the housing list, or any assessment of the other needs they may have. A proper assessment process needs to be introduced.

The Department of the Environment, in the Housing Policy Framework 'Building Sustainable Communities' (December 2005), flagged the need for a 'new means of assessing need' and noted that this may require legislative change.

The MakeRoom Campaign believe that an assessment process should:

• put a clear legal duty on local authorities to assess and meet housing need
• deliver on the Government's commitment to meet housing, health and other social and economic rights through an explicit statement of entitlement, and transparent access to quality public services

In practice, the assessment process should include:

• an advocate system - where applicants can nominate a person of their choice to support them through the assessment process
• a transparent and accessible appeals mechanism
• when an applicant has needs additional to housing, the client or their chosen advocate should be able to request a multidisciplinary needs assessment. The assessment should be carried out with the client, and with relevant statutory/voluntary service providers
• an individual plan detailing the needs identified, the appropriate service provider and the funding of those services, should be agreed with the applicant and the service providers; this should then be carried out
• where an agency fails to provide appropriate housing or supports to an applicant, redress should be available through an established procedure

The Housing Act 2009 gives the Minister for Environment, Heritage and Local Government new powers to reform the Housing Needs Assessment. It is hoped that the Minister will use this opportunity to address these issues.