Mark Dow Accommodation Initiatives West Sussex County Council

Social Care – “Doesn’t do housing” Intentionally Homeless households Families with No Recourse to Public Funds

Long periods in B & B accommodation or expensively funded TA Poor outcomes for households and children concerned Repeated demands on both Housing Services & Social Care

Cost of a homeless application £3752 (Crawley 2011) Average cost of accommodating IH and NRPF households £1516 per month £18,200 per annum Plus additional costs to the wider public purse of children & families that spend lengthy periods in TA

Housing advice not represented in Early Help Resource Centre Cases where homelessness could be prevented not identified Households referred in by agencies where the family had not sought advice from Housing Options Teams and only presented at the point of homelessness

Housing Adviser seconded into the EHRC Joint resources identified – DHP, LAN funding, DCLG prevention grant, S17 budget LAN funding made available to assist IH households IH / NRPF pilot developed with Crawley Borough Council

Sept – Dec 2015: 192 cases with accommodation issues referred into EHRC Joint working on 15 cases prevented homelessness Early referral to appropriate assistance has rescued 7 social tenancies and 2 private rented

3 cases have identified a greater priority on the housing Register that has resulted in an allocation shortly after identification Joint working has resulted in sharing of TA – less disruption for families moving between statutory duties Over 50% of cases have not gone on to require assistance from Social Care or Think Family - more work needed to interrogate the data and impact on local Housing Options Teams

The Future WSCC has established an Accommodation Team Potential joint development of TA Collaborative working in the available PRS Closer joint working around prevention