South Holland District Council urged to ‘think outside the box’ on homelessness – but senior figure ‘confident’ things will get better
A post-war spirit and creative thinking are needed to help sort our issues with homelessness, according to councillors.
On Tuesday, members of South Holland District Council’s Performance Monitoring Panel heard that the authority is failing to meet its targets for tackling homelessness.
A report for members said that the council aims to open a ‘case’ for 70% of issues of homelessness before the person involved actually loses their home. However, for the final quarter of 2022/23 it was only able to do so in 50% of the 175 homelessness cases reported.
Of the ‘prevention cases’, it aims to secure alternative or existing accommodation on 70% of occasions. Performance figures for the last quarter of 22/23 show it only did so for 9%.
A report blamed ‘changes in personnel’ – with four new starts and two vacancies in the team. A new ‘prevention officer’ has been appointed to address the issue.
Panel chairman Bryan Alcock said the matter was concerning and vice-chairman Michael Booth agreed that it was time to look at new intiatives that could help.
He warned: “My feeling is that there is a problem out there and the problem could get worse and not better.”
He felt that a housebuilding programme – as seen in the aftermath of the Second World War – was needed, but that quicker, short term measures were needed given the time this would take.
He added: “We need to think outside the box. We did it after the war and we need to do it again.”
Coun Tracey Carter, the new portfolio holder responsible for this issue, told the committee that she was ‘100%’ confident that the authority’s response to the problem would improve by the next quarter.
She said that while the cost of living crisis may force more people to seek help – she was sure the council had the right team in place to cater for them.
Coun Carter promised: “We are absolutely moving into a much stronger position.”
Coun Margaret Geaney called on the council to work with the voluntary sector.
She said: “If the message is out there, sometimes people will come forward to form themselves into organisations and do something but they need to know there’s a need.”