There’s no place like home. It always feels comforting to be back in your own place. Ipswich Borough Council (IBC) does provide homes to 7,800 council tenants, though there are some people that require some help to remain in their home.
Housing Related Support (HRS) aims to enable vulnerable people (including young people from age 16) to gain or regain the necessary skills to enable them to live independently and participate in their community.
Individuals can apply for supported accommodation if they have extra support needs. These could include mental health, alcohol and substance misuse, or criminal convictions. Individuals also need to be sleeping rough, sofa surfing, in emergency accommodation or have been asked to leave their current accommodation and have nowhere to go. Support is also provided for 55 young parents
The existing Suffolk wide HRS service consists of 724 units, which would be a bedspace with five hours of support a week per individual.
Tory-run Suffolk County Council (SCC) has made the decision to only fund HRS services to people it has a legal duty to, and decommission the rest. SCC will save £1 million in its budget in the financial year 2024/25 and a further £2 million by the end of 2024/25.
SCC announced this in their budget, without any consultation or warning to IBC and other councils. This was shocking for providers of HRS and also for IBC, as potentially 317 people would become homeless in the town, and expect IBC to house them. As Chair of the Suffolk Public Sector Leaders (SPSL), I was pleased that the SPSL agreed funding to enable the HRS service to continue ‘as is’ until the end of March 2025.
As a result, all Suffolk local authorities have worked together and engaged with existing providers, through a series of workshops, to carry out a detailed analysis of HRS data and explore alternative options for delivery. The main aim being to minimise household evictions and prevent any revolving door of homelessness.
Following this review each Council has decided to design and / or commission local services, reflective of the different needs faced locally across Suffolk. This will be complemented by mutual aid arrangements across Suffolk.
In Ipswich, there are currently 318 HRS units, which includes 11 units for young families. IBC will provide £426,000 to support 62 bedspaces in Ipswich. SCC will still be funding 117, meaning 179 bedspaces will be provided in Ipswich – a reduction of 139. This means that fewer vulnerable people will be helped to stay in their own home and move on to a better life. It probably means an increase in homelessness too.
I doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to deduce that to tackle homelessness, we need more homes. The Labour government has promised 1.5 million homes in five years, which is a bold target. I was heartened to hear Angela Rayner, Deputy Prime Minister, say that her top three priorities were Housing, Homelessness and child poverty. Hopefully, funding will follow those priorities.
Labour-run IBC has a priority of meeting the housing needs of the community. I was delighted to see the steel work completed on our latest building project. This is 30 flats on Bishop’s Hill, on the former Hope Church site, complete with shared gardens and dedicated onsite parking. There will be 11 one-bed and 19 two-bed flats. All will either be adapted for wheelchair users – or will be easily adaptable if needed. Solar panels, LED lighting, heat pumps and top quality insulation will furnish this community with energy-efficient, high-quality housing.
These flats will create places that Ipswich people can call home.