AQW 54897/11-16


Mr Steven Agnew
Green Party
North Down


Tabled Date: 26/02/2016
Answered On Date: 15/03/2016
Priority Written: No


Question:
To ask the Minister for Social Development what (a) strategies; and (b) provisions the Northern Ireland Housing Executive has in place to support homeless people that (i) are excluded from multiple homeless shelters; (ii) are failed asylum seekers home; (iii) have no recourse to benefits; and (iv) are excluded from being a full duty applicant.


Answer:
The Housing Executive has statutory responsibilities for responding to homelessness under the Housing (Northern Ireland) Order 1988. The Housing Executive’s current Homelessness Strategy, produced under the auspices of this legislation, focuses on prevention and early intervention.
Where a person has full duty applicant status, the Housing Executive may discharge that duty in stages, via temporary accommodation, until a permanent accommodation solution can be found. Where a person, who is a full duty applicant, is excluded from multiple shelters, the duty remains, and the Housing Executive will continue to secure accommodation for that applicant so long as it is required.
People generally become excluded from temporary accommodation due to a combination of complex factors, including behavioural issues, poor mental health, addictions and an inability or unwillingness to engage with services attached to accommodation facilities. The Housing Executive has developed a range of services to assist individuals with complex needs. These include:
a range of high tolerance, low threshold supported accommodation;
a pilot Housing First Model, which case manages complex individuals in individual accommodation with wraparound support;
In Belfast, the Housing Executive and Belfast Trust work with Extern to provide a Multi-Disciplinary Homeless Support Team.
The Housing Executive has no statutory authority to provide accommodation to failed Asylum Seekers or others with no recourse to public funds and must operate within the bounds of UK immigration law.
Persons subject to immigration control and other persons from abroad with no recourse to public funds are entitled to free advice in relation to homelessness and the prevention of homelessness. This may include referring the applicant to other support agencies. If the Housing Executive has decided the homeless applicant is a person who is ineligible, but believes they are destitute, and has a pre-existing care need or has children in the household, the Housing Executive may secure the services of the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety under the Health & Personal Services (NI) Order 1972. In the same way, the Health and Social Care Trusts have a duty under the Children (Northern Ireland) Order 1995 to provide services for persons under 18 who are children in need. Therefore, the Housing Executive will make a referral to the relevant Health and Social Care Trust in such instances.
The Housing Executive has a duty to provide advice and assistance to any homeless applicants who do not meet the statutory criteria for Full Duty Applicant status. Advice and assistance includes signposting to self-referral hostels, providing information on routes into the privately rented sector and other housing tenures. People who are not awarded full duty applicant status, and who remain eligible for housing services, can also be placed on the social housing waiting list.