On 27 April 2020, Dr Nell Munro, Carla Reeson, and HRLC Co-Director Professor Aoife Nolan submitted written evidence to the UK Parliament’s Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee's inquiry on the ‘Impact of COVID-19 on Homelessness and the Private Rented Sector’. The inquiry will consider both the immediate and long-term impact that the COVID-19 pandemic is having on the homeless, rough sleepers and those in the private rented sector.
In their submission, Dr Nell Munro, Carla Reeson, and Professor Aoife Nolan made the following key recommendations:
1. With regard to single homeless adults, the government should amend the Homelessness Code of Guidance to clarify when and why those accommodated in an emergency are in priority need of accommodation and how local authorities should meet the relevant statutory obligations.
2. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) and Public Health England should jointly commission a review of research into the spread of COVID-19 within specialist accommodation for homeless people in order to effectively target guidance and infection control responses in future.
3. Due to the impossibility of building a clear national picture of where homeless people were accommodated most effectively in response to the pandemic, the MHCLG should undertake qualitative work with local authorities to identify and share best practice.
4. MHCLG should make new emergency grant funding available to enable local authorities to procure additional services to support people with experience of rough sleeping to move on to stable accommodation.
5. MHCLG should make grant funding available to enable local authorities to procure self-contained temporary accommodation for families.
6. MHCLG should undertake a Child Right’s Impact Assessment of the housing policy actions it undertakes with regard to securing stable accommodation so as to ensure that such policy takes account of children’s rights-related interests.
Posted on Tuesday 5th May 2020