Guest blog post: Intention to action – the prospect of an end to child homelessness in Wales

Guest blogger Jennie Bibbings sets out why Shelter Cymru is calling on local authorities to immediately end the practice of finding households with children and independent young people intentionally homeless.

The changes to Welsh homelessness law in the last year have won praise from far and wide. Crisis CEO Jon Sparkes called it ‘a major step forward’, saying that ‘the Welsh Government has set an example for the rest of the UK.’

Now it seems likely that England may follow suit with a statutory homelessness prevention duty. At Shelter Cymru we’ve been fielding lots of enquiries from across the border about the detail of the Welsh approach. It’s a bit early to say anything definitive, although the statistics suggest a strong start with a 65 per cent success rate for the new prevention duty.

But while there are certainly examples of good practice emerging, our caseworkers are only too aware that for some people, the story hasn’t changed at all. For a variety of reasons there remain hundreds of people who are denied help to resolve their homelessness – and a sizeable proportion of those people are children.

Intentional homelessness

The ‘intentional homelessness’ test is a hangover from the old system that we can’t quite shake off. The idea is that if someone has deliberately caused their own homelessness, then they shouldn’t be eligible for housing help. The test only applies to people who are in priority need: in other words, it only applies to people who are vulnerable, or who have children, or similar reasons.

It’s supposed to be a disincentive for people to hand in their keys because they want a council house – which, even if it did actually work as a disincentive, would only have been relevant when we had enough social housing for everyone who was homeless. These days, local authorities can discharge their homelessness duties with private rented housing – and yet the test still persists.

As so often happens with policies that wield the stick rather than the carrot, a lot of vulnerable people fall foul of the intentionality test. Our casework and research consistently shows that households end up intentionally homeless because of circumstances beyond their control.

Take Angie, who was faced with unaffordable rent when her partner walked out on her and her children. She did what she thought was the responsible thing and handed in notice to her landlord before she fell into serious arrears, not realising this would lead to an intentionality decision. At the time of writing she is sharing a single bedroom with her two children. She is awaiting a review of the council’s decision and says that every day is getting harder.

Or take Gemma, who was heavily pregnant when she had to flee her privately rented home due to threats of violence against her and her family. She was too scared of reprisals to report the threats to the police, and because of this the council found her intentionally homeless.

Gemma ended up giving birth while homeless and sofa surfing. While she eventually appealed the decision successfully, the stress of the previous months left a lasting mark on her mental health.

Why wait?

No child should ever be cut off from homelessness assistance. The Welsh Government agrees that no household with children or any independent young person should be found intentionally homeless, and has given local authorities until 2019 to make the change.

They could end it now if they wanted, and save a further 400 children from homelessness.

We are asking Welsh councils to make the change now, not in 2019. We need the support of the public to make this happen. Please sign up and show your support to the campaign.

Jennie Bibbings (@jenniebibs) is Campaigns Manager at Shelter Cymru (@ShelterCymru).