Investigating the cascading geographies of housing vulnerability and the impact of

austerity in Exeter, UK

Dr Andrew Williams

Professor Paul Cloke

Professor Stewart Barr

Dr Jenny Barnett

•THE SURVEY…….

Indicative not representative 807 responses, 500+ usable narratives The power of voices and the responsibility to listen

“I probably fit all categories. I have worked all my life but in May had a breakdown and an now unemployed. I have a 15 year old son on the autistic spectrum and he can be volatile especially due to recent occurrences. We have a three bedroom home. We were using the utility room as an extra bedroom due to autistic son unable to share but he became increasingly agitated… It's not ideal but when my son kicks off the other two need to be somewhere safe!! In terms of cost? £800 is far to much for a single parent even when I was working!! Also I continually judged by the agent as I don't live in a manner that he lives his life!!! I have been seeking housing advice but have found the response from Exeter cold. To be told I should put my thirteen year old daughter in my room with me? Seriously? I don't go out. Don't smoke. Have virtually no social life so to take that from me you may as well take my identity. Yes I can sacrifice but I do need some time out/my own space. I recently sent a fed up and 'pissed off' letter to Devon homechoice. I did get a response and I am currently acting on that advice. I'm so sick of having to fight for the right accommodation. Renting privately you are restricted. They don't like people on benefits. Don't like you to have animals. My son can kick of and damage property which I do repair. That leaves stigma attached to it. I am utterly fed up and close to giving up!! There seems little hope for housing. Perhaps the previous conservative government should not have sold all the houses!! In saying that my parents gained from that era and now own their home outright!!”

Single mum of 3 renting from a private landlord

“It was just me and my 2 boys and despite working full-time and earning an above average salary, it was very difficult to make ends meet and my biggest monthly cost was the rent. The hardest thing to plan for was housing cost as my landlord increased the rent each year, my final year there he raised it by £100 a month, from £600 to £700 per month. It was also incredibly hard to get him to invest in the property which was very damp, in need of redecoration, had no central heating, in fact no heating at all in the bedrooms. At the time, I did investigate alternative properties, but there was nothing cheaper of better quality.”

Female with two children, single income and unable to afford her previous private rental accommodation

“There is a lack of protection for people renting in the private sector. We could be given notice at any time. This year we had a 5% rent increase (funnily enough just after the landlord paid for a new cooker). I didn't feel able to contest this as I was worried I would be given notice.”

Female aged 25-34 renting from a private landlord

“However, on the day I moved in, I realised that the flat had been left in a disgusting condition. I didn't want to stay there but I had no choice. I spent two/three weeks redecorating and cleaning the house. It was two weeks in and I still couldn't get rid of the foul smell. I eventually found out the source when I looked behind the sink and found faeces there.”

Male aged 45-54, renting from a housing association

H O U S I N G V U L N E R A B I L I T Y

HOUSING

Three interconnecting causes of wider and deeper vulnerability……..

VULNERABILITY

H O U S I N G V U L N E R A B I L I T Y

HOUSING

1. SOCIO-ECONOMIC CONTEXT

Cost of living outstripping income Employment deregulation Planning and housing deregulation Changing household composition

Indebtedness, emotional stress, mental health issues, FEAR FOR THE FUTURE….

COST OF LIVING CRISIS

VULNERABILITY

H O U S I N G V U L N E R A B I L I T Y

HOUSING

2. HOUSING CONTEXT

Insufficient newbuild Unaffordable house prices First time buyers Overheated private rental market Lack of social housing optionsFear about capacity to keep a roof over peoples’ heads

BROKEN HOUSING MARKETGENERATION RENT

VULNERABILITY

H O U S I N G V U L N E R A B I L I T Y

HOUSING

3. WELFARE CONTEXT

Austerity welfare reform Changes to housing benefits Increased reliance on private rental sector

Dilution of key ideas: “satisfactory” and “adequate” housing.

EROSION OF THEWELFARE SAFETY NET

VULNERABILITY

1. HOMELESSNESS – ROUGH SLEEPING

1. HOMELESSNESS – ROUGH SLEEPING

2. HIDDEN HOMELESSNESS

1. HOMELESSNESS – ROUGH SLEEPING

2. HIDDEN HOMELESSNESS

3. HIGHLY VULNERABLE

1. HOMELESSNESS – ROUGH SLEEPING

2. HIDDEN HOMELESSNESS

3. HIGHLY VULNERABLE

4. BECOMING AT RISK

Homeless services in Exeter

• Increase in hidden homelessness• Increasing demands on existing facilities• Lack of women-only hostel and refuge• Lack of housing options• Multiple barriers in accessing private rental accommodation • Inappropriate temporary accommodation• Importance of ‘soft’ support and advocacy• Sanctions

Increase in hidden homelessness

‘We are used to seeing 35 to 45 people a day. 45 is now the minimum we see and we are seeing up to 70 people a day... So that’s almost double. So we see a lot of sofa-surfers… hidden homeless and more people sleeping in their cars. Now I walk past a street and I can [see]… which hasn’t happened before, people just parking in residential streets and sleeping in their cars. So it’s definitely got worse the last 12 months. But our stats show, the last three/four years, an increase.’

St Petrocks

Increasing demands on existing facilities• Significant rise in rough sleeping• Long waiting lists for emergency accommodation • Inadequate provision of direct access• Insufficient facilities for winter

‘...we do winter provisions. There’s trigger points that the government set. We pull six people in here… we were pulling six people in here six years ago. Why are we still putting six people in? That used to be half our rough sleeping population. Now it doesn’t even scratch the surface... Things have trebled. But what we had before, we’ve lost a lot of that as well. So no dispersed hostel, no female hostel. Just one place.

SHOT Team

Increasing demands on existing facilities• Significant rise in rough sleeping• Long waiting lists for emergency accommodation • Inadequate provision of direct access• Insufficient facilities for winter

‘...we do winter provisions. There’s trigger points that the government set. We pull six people in here… we were pulling six people in here six years ago. Why are we still putting six people in? That used to be half our rough sleeping population. Now it doesn’t even scratch the surface... Things have trebled. But what we had before, we’ve lost a lot of that as well. So no dispersed hostel, no female hostel. Just one place.

SHOT Team

Lack of women-only hostel and refuge

‘The main gaps we see at the moment are we’ve just lost the female hostel, so there’s no women-only facility for high-support females. We’ve seen an increase in female clients accessing the centre. In previous years we’d see around 5% of our client group would be female. It’s 17% at the moment. And when we do see female clients they are generally far more complex than our… there is no average, but they are very complex. They need a lot of support. So that’s a massive gap. There is a gap for high-support accommodation in general. There’s a long waiting list at Gabriel House, and we’ve got a long number of clients waiting to get in there who aren’t suitable for other accommodation.’

St Petrocks

Lack of housing options

There’s a lot of disappointment from the client’s side when they are constantly, ‘Do all of this, we’ll look at moving you on,’ and they get to that stage and there are no options. It’s not necessarily the support worker’s fault; it’s just that there are limited options. You get a lot of people just going, ‘Why? Why do I do all this and slip back?’ So it’s very difficult. You’ve got to catch people at the right time when they are coming here. It might be in six months, it be in a few weeks, when they actually just start to take those big steps. If you can’t provide something at that point, you risk it all becoming undone again

SHOT team

Multiple barriers in accessing private rental accommodation • Affordability• Tenancy history (e.g. lack of reference, lack of sustained residence)• No smokers• No Housing Benefit• No ‘pets’

Multiple barriers in accessing private rental accommodation • Inadequate options in private rental sector for young people• Lack of ‘affordable’ rents • inadequate quality and maintenance of private rental property • Impact of the shared accommodation rate

‘We face an impossible task in terms of moving young people into independent accommodation as most private rental properties available to young people are not fit for habituation’

Esther CommunityShared houses have not been the best, I’ve had to share with drunks and drug takers and violent people and was unsafe many times

18 year woman now living in YMCA

Inappropriate temporary accommodation‘If you put people with high-support needs in private rented, as we’ve seen, it then affects the tenancies of other people in the housing block and people... you know, we’ve had clients who’ve walked from their private rented because someone’s moved in and caused lots of problems’ And the time spent trying to unravel all that when, actually, if you’d looked at the assessment, that person was waiting… all the indications from the assessment were saying - not private rented for this person, they need more support

St Petrocks

Importance of ‘soft’ support and advocacy

My biggest barrier is that I am dyslexic - I couldn't fill out any of the forms for the Council. There is help available but it depends on the attitude of the council person "only if they have the time" "Colin did it" 'oh Colin's not in' "I'm not Colin". It all depends on what person you get. I knew about 30-40 people living on the streets who could read & write - it is a major problem.

(Mark, foodbank client)

‘Because you do need someone to help you go through the process, council. You need a key worker who knows all the ins and outs and knows everything - can dot the i’s and all the t’s and all the rest of it, because the person who is homeless is in a state of mental anxiety and they need one person to be with them at all times to help them. Excuse me, I’m emphasising.’

(Paul, recently obtained temporary accommodation, St. Petrocks)

Sanctions

They put me into Gabriel, I was there for two and half years before, and then I got my flat. I had my flat for four years. Then the jobcentre put me on a benefits sanction. My Housing Benefit got stopped... All I had to live on was going out begging... And I had a dog and a cat to feed. And then obviously my Housing Benefit got stopped and basically I got kicked out. I was a bit peed off because I lost all my possessions, and that, as well.

(35-44 years old woman living at Gabriel House)

Benefit sanctions are having a detrimental effect particularly on our client group. I mean, we see the clients who are getting support in their accommodation… you know, our client group aren’t that good about opening letters and attending appointments and all that, but for the slightest reason they are getting sanctioned and not having any money. And then the Housing Benefit gets stopped and then it all completely spirals and they are that point of eviction. Some do notify us really quickly and we can help them sort it out. Others don’t. That’s had a really bad effect on people. So some people have been made homeless because of that. Mental health, I think, is also impacting on people. ...[E]ven if the Housing Benefit isn’t stopped, you’ve got no money, you’ve got no heating, you’ve got no food, and you are not paying your bills, so you are putting your tenancy at risk through non-payment of water and electricity and so on.

St Petrocks

Conclusion

• Presumption of upward mobility?

• Housing vulnerability not housing needs

• Private rented sector is under-regulated and insecure

• Homeless services• Net disinvestment• Dilution / ‘Hollowing out’ of accommodation providers• Displacement of support work• Gendered impact of austerity

Full report available from authors: A.Williams@ex.ac.uk