AQW 55565/11-16
Mr Fearghal McKinney
Social Democratic and Labour Party
South Belfast
Tabled Date: 15/03/2016
Answered On Date: 24/03/2016
Priority Written: No
Question:
To ask the Minister for Social Development to detail what action his Department is taking to address homelessness in Belfast.
Answer:
My Department addresses homelessness through the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE), which has statutory responsibility for responding to homelessness. The NIHE has a duty to produce a Homelessness Strategy every 5 years and the current 2012 – 2017 strategy sets out a range of actions to achieve the vision of “eliminating long term homelessness and rough sleeping by 2020”. My Department chairs an inter-agency Homelessness Strategy Steering Group, to provide guidance and direction on the Homelessness Strategy and includes representation from the voluntary provider sector as well as the statutory agencies including DHSSPS and DoJ. DSD provides funding of over £35 million per year for homelessness services in Northern Ireland, of which some £13m per year is for homelessness services in Belfast. This funding includes help for those in emergency situations, funding for work to prevent homelessness, as well as housing support services through the Supporting People Programme. Early intervention and prevention is a key element of the NIHE’s Homelessness Strategy. In support of this, the NIHE is developing a Housing Options approach to improve how it delivers its frontline homelessness services. Currently being piloted within three Housing Executive Offices (Belfast, Causeway and South Down), the Housing Options Model will examine an individual’s circumstances and choices in the widest sense when they seek housing advice to ensure that the housing solution is tailored to the specific needs of the individual with the necessary support provided where appropriate. Key objectives are to prevent homelessness and achieve choice both within the social housing and the private rental sector. NIHE plan to rollout its Housing Options Model across the organisation by March 2017 Homelessness is often characterised as being solely about rough sleeping when this is not the full picture. Rough Sleeping in Northern Ireland largely occurs in Belfast and to a lesser extent in Londonderry. Services in Belfast include: Providing day and night-time street outreach Providing a day centre with support services for up to 100 vulnerable service users Providing 20 crash beds and a night time reception service Provision of a wet hostel for up to 22 people 880 places of temporary accommodation for all types of households in Belfast, equating to over 2500 beds 351 of those places can be accessed directly by individuals In recent years in Belfast there has been a growing visibility of street activity including street drinking, begging and rough sleeping leading to a perception that the need to sleep on the street is on the rise. Late last year the Housing Executive in partnership with the Welcome Centre, Depaul Ireland and Belfast City Centre Management completed a Belfast Street Needs Audit. The Audit was carried out over a 12 week period from May to July 2015 between the hours of 10pm and 8am to get as comprehensive a picture as possible of street activity in Belfast. The Audit has highlighted that in addition to an entrenched group of rough sleepers who require case management from a housing perspective, there was a larger group observed that were engaged primarily in begging and street drinking. There are concerns that the visibility of this group is leading to a perception of higher rates of rough sleeping. A multi-agency approach is required to tackle this and two interagency groups have been established, one led by the NIHE to address the needs of identified chronic rough sleepers and the other, led by Belfast Community Safety Partnership will address the issues of street begging and street drinking. Homelessness is much more than a housing issue. Tackling homelessness in all its dimensions requires the collaboration of a wide range of partners from the statutory, voluntary and community sector. Following the recent deaths linked to homelessness I have established a Ministerial Sub–Group with ministerial colleagues from Justice and Health, Social Services and Public Safety to explore further the issues of street homelessness in Belfast and identify what more needs to be done. The first meeting took place on 14 March and was also attended by members of the provider sector and NIHE. An initial action plan has been developed which is being shared with NI Executive colleagues. The plan focuses on short-term and longer term actions to make existing services more accessible, address current identified gaps in service, improve linkages between services and raise public awareness on some key issues.
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