Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from:

James Durie

Alistair Allender

Ian Knight

Nick Horne

Stephen Teagle

Rob Kerse

To approve the minutes of the meeting held on the 13^th September 2018.

The minutes of the 13 September 2018 were agreed as a correct record

Matters arising

PS gave a quick update on the housing festival. The launch event attracted 6k people, with all events sold out on.

BCC are looking through portfolio of sites. Chalk road car park has been earmarked for a ZED pod.

PW confirmed that Shelter have submitted a comment on the housing green paper

Public Forum questions and statements are permitted on any Key Decision agenda item.  There are no Key Decisions to be taken at this meeting.

None

TR and Aileen Edwards gave a presentation on Mental Health and Housing. 45% of people with mental health issues are in insecure accommodation. 78% of homeless have mental health issues. 60% identify housing as a trigger. Mental Health survey last year shows a national trend for issues with temporary housing.

Social determinates of health: housing, employment, debt. Want different people with mental health experience to get together with professionals and decision makers. Don’t want to duplicate work, know this project can feed into other things. Want Bristol to be the lead on best practice. Understand that this is not going to be all-encompassing. Needs buy in to effect change.

Team has developed a Matrix of Mental Health and Housing Security to identify risk. Reaching people who don’t access services is very difficult. There is a lack of awareness over domestic violence and how this interacts with housing. There are also cultural issues, different language or attitudes towards mental health. Underestimating the impact of social isolation. PIE – psychological informed environment. How the physical environment impacts on individual and community.

Recommendations:

Housing First could expand to include MH element.

Floating support service for tenancies need to be protected, saves in long run.

Early intervention with children and young people to ID risk.

More info about where you can go for advice / services.

Physical design improvement to improve mental health.

Need more champions, collective work would be better, too much silo at the moment.

Members congratulated presenters for an excellent piece of work. It is timely as the One City Plan is ramping up, with a real focus on joining up the thematic boards such as Bristol Homes Board and Health and Wellbeing Board. Last month was the better lives programme, looking at specialist provision. BCC now has a fund for supported housing projects and housing association. There is a need for single person accommodation to support the pathway. On December 13 there is an ‘Upstream’ meeting about how physical design affects physical and mental health, e.g. access to green space. After that meeting, there will be more data available to build on.

PW Shelter did research with MIND on the mental health / housing link. It’s important to do practical things to help people to settle, e.g. DIY skills to ensure tenants feel safe in their homes. There’s concern in the advice community about expectations of the public. Advice is very important for prevention. North Bristol advice centre are working with GP surgeries to provide advice with great success, but not sure how sustainable. Want to work in partnership, but there is a possible block to this in future with how the CCG funding plans will work.

Members discussed the governance of the BHB in terms of adopting / promoting the recommendations in the report. BHB formal adoption is helpful, but other boards will be asked to hold and monitor (e.g. RAG rate), so influence is important. The recommendations should also be taken to the Health and Wellbeing Board and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

Graham Jones and David Inerslev gave a presentation on the Rough Sleeping Strategy.  This strategy was due for publication but has been delayed to make sure it is fit for purpose. It follows from the rough sleeping roadmap contained in the resilient city strategy. Modelling is based on a short term funding cycle every 1 or 2 years. The headline strategy is to make more affordable homes. It is a statutory duty to produce this strategy.

Rough sleeping count is ever increasing. 2013 – Mar 2018 hot spot counts are used as a general guide. 5 years ago between 10 /20 rough sleepers, now between 50/90. Bristol is very similar to Manchester. Both core cities with high level visual representations in centres. Brighton has similar issues with lack of available housing. More women as a proportion are sleeping rough in Bristol. Temporary accommodation shows an upward trend. This includes increasing numbers of individuals with no recourse to public funds. Part 7 acceptance is dropping. Increased disparity between LHA and private sector rental rates.

Strategy has 5 priorities: rough sleeping, prevention, health and wellbeing, equalities and working in partnership. Feel like we have lost link to social care. The strategy is a living document, requires updates every year to report into central government. Due date is now April Cabinet 2019.

The social housing lettings figures worrying. In 2008 we let 3000 per year in 2018 this has dropped to 1815. New property available is falling. How do we get up? Not just about new build. These figures went to central government 2 weeks ago. They will be very robust about monitoring us as a top 5 city for homeless. Bristol perceived as good collaborative environment. Mayor is having joint meeting next week with groups, especially those not currently engaged.

Temporary Accommodation is expensive as it costs beyond what can be clawed back on housing benefit. Looking at having properties on standby as would be cheaper. Doing some viability tests for temporary or modular schemes. No single solution, but want to lower cost and improve supply. Proposals are going through decision pathway now. Next financial year for property purchase scheme. Want to avoid placing out of area at great cost.

There was a discussion on forming a list of subjects to lobby central government, based on what local authorities / central government are able to do. This should be placed on the agenda for the 21 March BHB ACTION

Minimum tenure for tenancies needs to be extended. 6 months at moment, suggestion is 3 years. About long term is security – do I know I can live here for certain amount of time. E.g. put kids through school.

Churn rate on council housing is low. Void is 300 out of 27000 properties. With borrowing cap released, BCC should look at poor quality stock and whether we should replace. Demolish and rebuild to improve overall stock. Empty properties are actually low in the city. Bring around 500 back on to market per year.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

Report shared for information only

The Housing Delivery Report Update was noted

Sea Mills is running an exhibition to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of the Addison Act for council estates

HMP Bristol has been selected as part of a pilot scheme to prevent recently released individuals becoming homeless

James Brokenshire made a surprise visit to a Fishponds project recently