Our Response to the Welsh Government’s White Paper on Ending Homelessness (2023-24)
What’s it about?
In October 2023, the Welsh Government released a White Paper, which is a document that governments use to consult citizens and experts on policy proposals, on the legislative and policy changes they plan to implement in order to end homelessness in Wales.
The document is hefty - it’s 170 pages in length and asks 28 questions, so we’ve been busy developing our answer over the last few months.
As always, we wanted to make sure that our answer represented the voice of young people, so we hosted a number of focus groups as well as distributing a survey, to find out what young people in Wales thought of these proposals. If you contributed to any of these, then thank you so much, and we hope our response does justice to the stories and opinions you shared with us.
What does it say?
It’s not easy to condense thousands of words of proposed legislative reform, but we’ve tried our best to do so below.
The Welsh Government want to move towards a prevention approach to tackling homelessness. Basically, that means making it less likely that people will experience homelessness in the first place, and improving the services available to them when they do. Their goal is to make homelessness in Wales an occurrence that is “rare, brief, and unrepeated”.
To do this, they want to implement a model called ‘Rapid Rehousing’, meaning that people should be rehoused into safe, appropriate, and secure accommodation as quickly as possible when they present to homelessness services.
There are a few ways that they suggest we move towards this model, and they’ve put forward a number of very ambitious proposals, like the abolition of the ‘Priority Need’ and ‘Intentionality’ tests, which Local Authorities perform whenever someone makes a homelessness application.
Some of their proposals relate specifically to improving homelessness prevention and provision for children, young people, and care-experienced young people, so we had a lot to say about these in particular, which you can read about below.
Key Proposals
The bullet-points below are a brief overview of some of the key proposals that you need to know about. You can read the Welsh Government’s more detailed summary of their proposals here.
Changing the prevention duty from fifty-six (56) days to six (6) months = your local authority have to intervene to prevent you from becoming homeless if it’s likely to happen in six months (rather than the current fifty-six days)
Scrapping the priority need test = making it so that everyone in Wales is eligible for homelessness assistance when they need it
Scrapping the intentionality test = making it so people are owed homelessness assistance regardless of whether or not they are ‘intentionally’ homeless
Adapting the local connection test = adding additional categories and ‘special circumstances’ to who is exempt from the local connection test, so certain people will still be owed homelessness assistance even if they don’t have a connection to the area
introducing a new duty to identify, refer, and cooperate = making it a legal requirement for public sector departments to work collaboratively together to end homelessness
Giving care-experienced young people priority need status (if the test isn’t abolished)
Allowing 16-17 year-olds to be ‘occupation contract holders’ = making it so as 16-17 year-olds can legally have their own tenancies in the private rented sector
Banning the use of the homelessness system as a route out of the care or youth justice systems
What did we say?
Well, our full response, which you can read here, amounted to over 20,000 words, so we had plenty to say. But, broadly speaking, our main concerns about the White Paper’s proposals are;
The Welsh Government’s model of prevention isn’t preventative enough — more needs to be done to prevent people from ever becoming threatened with homelessness, rather than just intervening at crisis point
While it’s important to approach legislation with a long-term view, we feel there isn’t enough in these proposals to address the short-term crisis that the housing and homelessness sector is currently facing and, frankly, it won’t be possible to implement most of their plans without first addressing the issues the sector is facing around (lack of) funding, resources, and supply
Implementation — there are plenty of examples of good legislation that isn’t put into practice, which we don’t want to see happen again. So, we’ve told the Welsh Government that they need to do more to enforce legislation and support local authorities in implementing it, to ensure that the proposals are realised to their full potential
Below, you can read about our response in more detail, and what we’ve said about specific proposals.
Prevention
While we’re thrilled to see that Welsh Government are moving towards a prevention model, we feel that their view of prevention is a bit too short-sighted. For example, they’re proposing to increase the prevention duty from the current fifty-six (56) days to six (6) months. So, if it’s likely you’ll become homeless within six (6) months, your local authority have to intervene to prevent you from becoming homeless, instead of the current fifty-six (56) days. While that’s by no means a bad change, we feel that if someone is threatened with homelessness within six months, they’re already in crisis. Being threatened with homelessness is a stressful and traumatic experience, even when homelessness is ultimately prevented. In our view, true ‘prevention’ means avoiding a situation where someone is ever threatened with homelessness, so we’ve asked that Welsh Government change their language to describe this prevention duty as ‘crisis intervention’ instead of prevention, in line with our Roadmap to Ending Youth Homelessness. If homelessness is to become “rare, brief, and unrepeated”, then prevention needs to start a lot sooner than six months and the legislation should be clear about that.
Priority Need, Intentionality, and Local Connection
Currently, when you present as homeless to a local authority, they will perform these three tests to assess what duties are owed to you. Welsh Government want to change these tests in the following ways.
At the moment, certain categories of people are given priority need for homelessness assistance. Pregnant people, people with dependent children, young people aged 16 or 17, young people aged 18-20 who are care-experienced or at risk of financial or sexual exploitation, and victims of domestic abuse are just some of the people who are given priority need status under the current legislation.
The Welsh Government are proposing that we get rid of priority need. They want to create a Wales that is fair and just, where everyone is eligible for help, so they see priority need as a barrier that they want to get rid of.
Obviously, we’re all for this. Of course, we want to strive for a Wales that is fair and equitable, and a housing system that is built on equality. We do have, however, a number of concerns around its removal, based on what young people themselves told us, that we believe have to be addressed before such a decision can implemented; to prevent young people being pushed inadvertently even further from the support they need at a time of crisis.
One of the problems with priority need is the culture of competition that it has fostered — the homeless-experienced young people we spoke to were deeply aware of how under-resourced housing teams are, and that they’re likely to be effectively in competition with other people who are attempting to get help. Time and again, we heard young people talk of who is “most deserving” of support. So, even though we fully support the abolition of priority need, we know that currently, given the reality of the situation, there simply isn’t enough housing and support to go around. Many homeless-experienced young people, particularly those who are care-experienced, understand this and expressed that being in priority need had helped them to get homelessness assistance that they may not have had without it.
It’s unsurprising, then, that the majority of young people who answered our survey did not agree with this proposal. When asked “do you think it’s a good idea to get rid of the priority need test?”; 66% of respondents answered no, 25% answered yes, and 8% were unsure.
So, given this reality, it does make it harder to advocate for the removal of priority need - which is something we fully believe in and support — but, the priority need test is currently one of the few parts of the system that potentially works in young people’s favour.
The way we see it, young people are not on an even footing with their older peers. They tend to have lower incomes and are more likely to be earning minimum wage and/or working ‘zero-hour’ contracts, they’re penalised by the UK welfare system which limits their entitlement to housing benefit, and are routinely discriminated against and exploited by landlords and letting agents when attempting to rent in the private sector, to name just a few of the challenges young people face when attempting to access housing.
So, what we suggest instead is that all young people under 25 are given priority need status. Then, the removal of priority need is gradually implemented over time, once we’ve tackled the current housing crisis, to allow the system to be ready to face the increase in demand. We believe acting in this way provides some form of equity to young people, in a system that does not currently come close to providing this, and will also bring us closer to the Welsh Government’s own goal of ending youth homelessness by 2027. All young people, regardless of their situation, should be accommodated and supported at their point in crises, which is currently not the case.
The intentionality test, though it’s rarely used in practice these days, is the test that local authorities use to assess whether or not you became homeless because of something you knowingly did or didn’t do. The Welsh Government want to get rid of this test, which we fully support.
In light of our previous research on LGBTQ+ youth homelessness, care-experienced youth homelessness, and, most recently, neurodivergence and youth homelessness, we’re particularly concerned about the effects of such a test on these already disadvantaged groups, whose homelessness might be considered intentional under current service provision, even though the realities of their situations are much more complicated and nuanced.
We see it as an unnecessary barrier to accessing services, and it’s fundamentally opposed to the trauma-informed, prevention-focused model that the Welsh Government are striving for so, we’re pleased to see the back of it.
The local connection test is applied to determine whether you have a connection to the area in which you’re applying for homelessness assistance. If you don’t, the council may decide to send you to a different authority for help.
Welsh Government are not proposing to scrap the local connection test entirely because local authorities see it as an essential tool that helps them manage their caseload. They are, however, proposing some changes to the test.
They propose adding the following groups to the list of exemptions from the local connection test:
People with care-experience who are not currently accommodated under social services
Veterans and people who live(d) with veterans/military personnel during their time in service
People who were subject to domestic abuse, other abuse or exploitation, and will experience trauma as a result of that abuse if referred to another local authority
Prison leavers who require a move to a new area as part of their rehabilitation, or to meet the restrictions placed on where they can live as a result of their offence
They are also considering how “special circumstances” criteria may be applicable to certain groups who are potentially disadvantaged by the local connection test. These are;
Young people aged 25 and under
Members of the LGBTQ+ community
Disabled people who require particular support
Gypsy, Roma, and Traveler communities
People seeking recovery from drug/alcohol abuse
from an aspirational point of view, we fully support the abolition of the local connection test but, in the context of the current housing crisis, we can appreciate the reasoning behind Welsh Government not wanting to go this far currently.
However, we see the Welsh Government’s proposals as too ambiguous. For example, while we’re pleased that they acknowledge the specific challenges that the LGBTQ+ community face and the importance of ‘found families’, we don’t think that an LGBTQ+ young person should have to effectively ‘out’ themselves to service providers in order to receive help which, under these proposals, they would likely have to.
We would like to see a situation where young people threatened with homelessness don’t have their life chances limited by the location in which they happen to find themselves. In the survey we distributed, we asked young people what reasons they might have for wanting to move to a different area when threatened with homelessness. The answers ranged from “fleeing abuse”, “fleeing bullying / homophobia”, “fleeing a toxic environment”, to “better services”, “closer to friends/partner”, “opportunity”, or simply “a new start”. Most of these reasons, aside from fleeing abuse, would not be accepted as an exemption from the local connection test. And, frankly, the likely reality is that if a young person would like to move to a certain area, for whatever reason, they’ll probably do so whether they’re legally considered to have a local connection or not.
Young people, for a variety of reasons, don’t have the same access to housing as their older peers so, for the sake of equity and simplicity, we are advocating for all under-25s to be exempt from the local connection test.
The Duty to Identify, Refer, and Cooperate
To make sure that public services work together effectively to prevent and relieve homelessness, the Welsh Government are proposing a new legal duty for named bodies in the public sector to recognise the signs and risks associated with homelessness so as they can make a referral to the housing team at the first sign of homelessness and, where appropriate, cooperate with housing and any other relevant departments to support the individual collaboratively. This new duty would apply to the following bodies;
Social Services departments
Local Health Boards
Registered Social Landlords
The Welsh Government also acknowledge that, in order for this legislation to work most effectively, there are other bodies that should be included in this duty but that they do not currently have devolved powers over, so it will require more work in collaboration with the UK Government. These are;
Department for Work & Pensions
Youth Justice Services
Probation
Prisons and other detention centers
His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service
The police
The Home Office
The Secretary of State for defense (in relation to armed forces accommodation)
A lot of our previous research has highlighted the need for better case-coordination in supporting young people, so we’re really pleased that the Welsh Government plan to enforce this approach. However, we feel that these proposals don’t go far enough.
When we asked young people if they’d ever encountered a service and wished that they’d known more about homelessness, the overwhelming answer was yes, and the examples they gave included hospitals, police, social workers, mental health services, and schools/colleges, as well as just “the general public”.
Education (including schools, colleges, and universities) is a devolved power and, obviously, one that has a lot of contact with children and young people, so we were particularly disappointed to find that they had not been included in this proposal.
100% of the young people we surveyed agreed that introducing this new duty is a good idea, and 100% (excluding those who don’t know) also agreed that Education should be included, stating;
“schools see the most of young people, and would be able to help homelessness to be identified easily”
“In order to prevent homelessness, you need to educate young people about what homelessness is”
Although Welsh Government have expressed that they wish for Education to be included, they have also made a recent commitment to reducing the workload and bureaucracy for school staff, so they are undertaking a ‘workload impact assessment’ to assess the feasibility of including them in this new duty.
But, the way we see it, not including education would be a huge missed opportunity to prevent thousands of children and young people from becoming homeless. There are upwards of 26,000 teachers employed by local authorities in Wales — and that doesn’t include other school staff like Teaching Assistants and 1-1 support. That’s tens of thousands of staff who have daily contact with our children and young people and who, if they were given the right tools, resources, and support, would be able to make a huge difference in preventing at-risk children and young people from experiencing homelessness.
So, we’ve let Welsh Government know in the strongest possible terms the importance of including education in the duty to identify, refer, and cooperate.
Although they’re not a public sector body, we would also like to see private landlords and letting agents included in this duty. We know from our conversations with young people how common it is to be threatened with homelessness as a result of losing accommodation in the private rented sector (PRS), whether that’s because of an eviction or a failure to find suitable alternative housing at the end of your occupation contract (tenancy agreement). We also know that there’s a lack of protection for young people in the PRS; a recent inquiry found that Cardiff Council have not investigated a single illegal eviction in over a decade, with the High Court ruling it a “systemic failure”.
So, we don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask not only for better enforcement of the existing regulations that landlords and letting agents have to meet, but also for them to have a legal duty to refer tenants on to homelessness assistance services in instances where they are at risk of homelessness when their tenancy ends.
Children, young people, and those with care-experience
A number of the proposals relate specifically to children and young people and, in particular, young people with care experience so, as you can imagine, we had a lot to say about them.
One of the more controversial proposals is to allow 16-17 year-olds to be ‘occupation contract holders’ or, in other words, to have their own tenancies in the Private Rented Sector (PRS).
When we asked young people what they thought of this proposal, only 11% agreed that it’s a good idea while 44% didn’t think it is. The general consensus from young people who took part in our survey and focus groups is that, if this legislation were to be carried forward, it would need to be accompanied by strict guidance and assessment of the young person’s capacity, tailored and person-centered floating support, and training in independent living skills.
While we think this proposal could empower more young people to live independently, we don’t want to see 16-17 year-olds placed in private rented accommodation and left without support.
Therefore, we feel that allowing them to rent privately may not be the solution. Instead, we’ve recommended that Welsh Government allocate funding and resources to provide more supported accommodation targeted towards 16-18 year-olds that prepares them for living independently, such as the Training Flats scheme in Carmarthenshire. This would mean that no vulnerable 16-17 year old would be left in independent accommodation without the skills or support to maintain it, but would instead be placed in supported accommodation that ensures that they are ready and able to live independently when they turn 18/19, or when they feel ready to do so.
Corporate Parenting
The Welsh Government have also committed to strengthening corporate parenting duties. Corporate parenting is the notion that local authorities should act as parents to care-experienced children and young people. At the moment, the corporate parenting responsibility only lies with social services. In June 2023, the Welsh Government published a ‘corporate parenting charter’ which allows other bodies to voluntarily sign up to be corporate parents.
The way we see it, this isn’t good enough. Looked-after-children deserve corporate parents who are committed to their care and social services can’t do it all alone. Improving the wellbeing and prospects of looked-after-children and young people should be the business of everyone in the public sector.
So, we’re encouraging the Welsh Government to make the corporate parenting charter statutory rather than voluntary. That way, public sector bodies like schools, health boards, mental health services, housing, etc will all be legally responsible for providing parental support to the care-experienced children or young people who come through their doors.
Youth Homelessness Strategy
At EYHC, we have always advocated for a distinct youth homelessness strategy and action plan, and we believe that this would form a crucial aspect of the Welsh Government’s preventative strategy.
Some other countries like Ireland have implemented distinct youth homelessness strategies and we want to see Wales go the same way. We believe that recognising youth homelessness as a distinct issue and treating its prevention as ‘everybody’s business’ will bring us closer to ending homelessness of all kinds for future generations.
To quote our Vice-chair, Professor Pete Mackie;