Bevan Foundation welcomes Senedd committee report on homelessness

Senedd committee endorses a number of the Bevan Foundation’s calls on improving access to housing

The Bevan Foundation has welcomed the publication of the Local Government and Housing Committee’s recent report on homelessness. The report’s publication came on the same day as the Bevan Foundation published a new briefing showing just had few properties are available in Wales at LHA rates, and the impact this is having on the homelessness system.

Given the Foundation’s work on LHA and homelessness we were especially pleased to see the Committee echo our calls for the Welsh Government to try and influence the UK Government to increase LHA:

The Welsh Government should set out what steps it is taking to influence the UK Government to increase the Local Housing Allowance rate to at least the 30th percentile of local market rents.

The Bevan Foundation’s work in this area has highlighted that its not just the fact that LHA rates have been frozen that is causing a challenge for low income renters. Issues such as a lack of available data on the rental market is undermining our ability to understand what is happening in Wales and to develop both practice and policy solutions. We drew attention to these limitations in both our written and oral submissions to the Committee and we are pleased to see the Committee has made several recommendations to remedy this, including by making greater use of Rent Smart Wales, a key Bevan Foundation recommendation.

The report goes on to highlight issues such as the lack of availability of one-bedroom properties, recommending explore options for increasing this. It further recommends the Welsh Government work alongside social landlords to ensure they fully utilise schemes to enable them to buy properties from private landlords to expand the stock of social housing. These are areas of work that the Bevan Foundation will be eager to see what progress is made by the Welsh Government.