Council Likely To Fall Short On Hastings Homelessness Savings

Hastings Borough Council is expected to fall short of its £1m homelessness savings target, councillors have heard.

On Tuesday (September 19), officers updated the council’s overview and scrutiny committee on the latest projections connected with the housing and homelessness spending — a key factor in the authority’s financial troubles. 

As previously reported by the LDRS, the council has set itself a target of reducing this part of its budget by £1m each year. As things stand, however, the council only expects to achieve savings of £798,898 this year.

Chris Hancock, the council’s recently appointed head of housing, told councillors that the slippages are the result of issues in two key areas: setting up former rough sleepers in long term rentals and increasing the supply of affordable housing within the town. 

On the first of these, Mr Hancock said:

“We have some funding to secure leases in the private sector; multi-year leases [for former rough sleepers]. That proved very challenging. 

“We’ve got funding for 20 leases. We’ve only been able to secure two … we are not finding landlords [or] freeholders who are interested or have properties available for that purpose.” 

This project had been expected to save the council £147,816, mainly by moving people out of temporary accommodation. The underperformance means the project is now only expected to save £14,782 in the current financial year.

A connected project, which has seen the council acquire properties to house former rough sleepers itself, has proven more successful however. This project (funded by government grants) is on-track to save £93,370 this year and £124,483 next year, Mr Hancock said. 

The issues with the affordable housing supply represents a more significant loss in the short term. 

The council had planned for a number of affordable house building projects to come forward in the next two years. These were collectively expected to reduce housing costs by £144,931 this year and by more than £1.37m next year. Mr Hancock said issues with individual development projects had delayed these savings.

Mr Hancock said:

“Everytime we had a new supply of affordable accommodation for rent, that was coming through on a new development, somebody would be able to move out of temporary accommodation into that. 

“Because of some of the challenges we’ve had around development sites that we expected to come through within this financial year or the next financial year, which aren’t going to be coming though. 

“We will achieve those savings, but we won’t within this financial year or the next financial year. We simply won’t have the homes coming online for people to move into.”

The council now only expects to save £31,937 from new affordable housing development in 2023/24 and £217,085 the year after.

Despite the slippages, the committee heard how other elements of the housing and homelessness savings were on track and could potentially achieve greater than expected results.

These include savings achieved as a result of new hires in its housing team. 

Mr Hancock told the committee how the council had hired four additional housing options officers, who have been tasked with clearing a backlog of applications for housing assistance. 

Their work is on track to save the council £413,069 this year — the largest in-year saving within the council’s housing budget. These officers are also expected to provide a more modest ongoing saving once the backlog is cleared, which is expected to be around £98,000 next year. 

Alongside this, council has also hired two ‘home visiting’ officers, who undertake preventative work with people at risk of becoming homeless. This work is on track to save a little over £229,000 in this financial year and around £556,000 next year.

Mr Hancock said:

“They have been in post since September, but really encouragingly they have had 10 home visits in that time, eight of which we’ve been able to do some mediation and help the person stay at home while we look at other options, whereas they would have come into temporary accommodation or potentially come into temporary accommodation. 

“I’m hopeful that we continue at that rate. I would be very pleasantly surprised, but it is really encouraging that we are able to do that.  

“Even though we started later than we would have hoped, I think we will still be able to meet the savings we projected for those roles. Just by preventing those eight incidences of potential homelessness we will have saved over £80,000 in temporary accommodation costs.”

The final pillar of the council’s savings plans is its acquisition of properties to use as an alternative to private sector temporary accommodation. This work is on track to save £16,732 this year and hoped to save £189,458 next year.