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We now move to item 4, which is evidence on the housing bill from Cumbernauld YMCA. I welcome our witnesses. Stewart McCrae is the executive director and Eleanor Campbell is the deputy executive director of Cumbernauld YMCA. We have been taking initial evidence on the proposals for the housing bill. Unfortunately, we still await the bill, but we are keen to take perspectives on what we expect to be in the bill. We have taken evidence from women's organisations and from Age Concern and we also want to consider the impact of the proposals from the perspective of young people and children. We would like the witnesses to make some introductory remarks, after which we will move to questions.
It is pleasing to be given this opportunity to give evidence on the issues in the housing bill proposals that will affect young people. As members will have seen from our submission, Cumbernauld YMCA and YWCA has been developing supported accommodation for young people, in partnership with the local authority, since 1987. That partnership has been positive for both organisations. We take a positive, holistic approach to the support of young people, which fits in well with the Executive's inclusion strategy and the work in which this committee is interested.
Thank you for that statement and for your submission. In your paper, you recommend that youth housing should be regarded as a specialist function and, in your presentation, you have outlined the distinct needs of young people and how you have addressed those needs in your area. There is a proposal to give local authorities more responsibility. It is proposed that the bill should place on local authorities a duty to provide a strategy to tackle homelessness, rather than merely a duty to tackle homelessness. How will that work? What advantages would such a duty have for organisations such as yours? Would it strengthen your ability to provide support for young people?
Yes. I believe that that will greatly strengthen our position. This relates to the idea of maintaining momentum in dialogue. There has been a tendency to treat dialogues at a level that does not always pick up the detail of some of the key issues—it would be like talking to me about the detail of youth housing although the practitioner knows more about it than I do. Care in the community was a good example of an opportunity to develop further services to young people but, due to various reasons, it was lost. That is important.
A place at the table on a continuous basis is important. In the past, we have been presented with a strategy almost as a fait accompli. Key issues have not been addressed and have been highlighted only after the event. That has meant that decisions on changes in services have been taken at a policy level and that young people have fallen through the cracks. Had agencies such as the one that we represent been involved at a strategy planning level, the issues could have been dealt with at that time. I appreciate that we might not be able to incorporate everything we want to, but major issues are being missed because we are brought in at the tail end and are not involved in the strategy discussions.
You are affected by how legislation is implemented rather than influencing what is in the legislation.
That is correct.
Your submission suggests that local authorities should not necessarily provide the services directly. Given that the voluntary sector provides such services on a patchy basis, how should local authorities ensure that the services are provided? Should they have a statutory duty to provide them if there is no local provision by the voluntary sector?
It would be impossible to make a blanket requirement that a local authority must take up a voluntary organisation to provide its youth housing. I am emphasising the idea that if a specialist in youth activity—such as our organisation or one similar—operates in the area, it should be brought to the table. If the local authority is able to gain a better understanding of young people and the issues that are pertinent to them, it is more likely to do better work in the wider perspective than simply providing housing.
I recognise the unique role that organisations such as yours can play. Given that there is no coherent provision at the moment, what should happen when there are no organisations such as yours? What should local authorities do in their strategic role? What should there be in the bill to place on local authorities the burden of delivering the strategy?
They must have a duty to provide the services. To find out how to provide the services, they would have to pull in expertise from other areas and ensure that that expertise was delivered in areas other than housing, such as in areas related to support needs.
I agree that it is important that relevant expertise is brought in, but it is also important that there is a sophisticated approach. The question is not simply one of having the local authority provide accommodation. You might not agree with this, but I do not think that hostel accommodation is ideal. If people live in a hostel and are intent on disrupting it, they have a great effect on the other residents. We have been told that in some written evidence.
I would go along with that. We do not have a hostel. The word "hostel" has dreadful connotations.
I know.
Most of our housing allows two or three people to share, out in the community. For young people to survive in such a set-up, a fairly consistent level of support, which they respect, must be provided, because they will not take what is offered if they do not want it. A relationship must be built up with them. Our occupancy agreement refers to responsibilities and consequences, which it is essential to consider in sustaining a tenancy or occupancy in the community. I agree; I would go to a smaller unit. The hostel accommodation is limited and small.
What is your view on probationary tenancies and their use for young people?
I do not think that there is a problem with probationary tenancies, but I must see how they are written up and administered for support purposes. I can speak only from my own experience. If I ask young people whether they want their own tenancies and their own places, they will say yes, regardless of their abilities at the time to maintain such a tenancy. They will come up against problems. Through support, they may have got a job and put some structure back into their lives. Once people go out on their own, they have difficulty controlling their door. People whom they do not want to allow in may come to the door, and the young people may not have the strength of character or the power to say, "No, you're not coming in."
Do you see a duty of support for any provider, if the Executive goes ahead with probationary tenancies?
Yes.
If a young person who has approached you is in shared accommodation and moves on to a form of independent living with support, what is the average time that you have an association with them? I know that they come back and visit you year after year, but how long does the support last?
The average time is about a year, but it can be 18 months. Having said that, some people are more than capable of moving on within three months. However, the average time is a year to 18 months, which is why we are concerned about the six-month period, which cuts the time short. There should be flexibility; people should not be tied to a time.
Is that pattern unique to the Cumbernauld or North Lanarkshire area? Have you asked colleagues who operate in other parts of the country whether the pattern is the same elsewhere?
Where services such as ours have evolved to meet the needs of a specific group, there is a pattern of networking with colleagues at all sorts of conferences. That happens across the spectrum; it is not unique to our area.
I want to ask Stewart McCrae some questions about the foyer. I know that the original seed of the idea that was planted in your mind a few years ago was based on something that was happening in France. Why do you think that your set-up in the North Lanarkshire area is appropriate for housing young people in Scotland today?
The foyer concept was attractive to Cumbernauld Y for its supported accommodation because it dealt with some of the key elements that young folk have difficulty with. It gave them access to affordable accommodation and to job and training opportunities in a way that allowed for some mobility. It seemed to offer the sort of approach that was missing. Simply by providing supported accommodation and looking at personal life skills, it addressed the key issues that enable young people to move on and be independent beings who can look after their own place and get on in the world.
Thanks, Stewart. The forthcoming housing bill should present us with opportunities in this area. Do you think that that legislation should provide for scope for expansion of foyer services?
Quite apart from the housing side, the foyer service has been very successful and more than 1,500 people have used it in Cumbernauld since it started in 1995. The measure of success of a foyer service is that it should allow access to a training opportunity or job that will be maintained for at least three months—the same measure as is used by the Employment Service. Our success rate in that respect has fluctuated between 50 and 55 per cent of those taking part in the sustained activity of the foyer. Locally, the Employment Service has recognised that figure as a very significant and positive return.
We will explore some other areas such as tenancy agreements.
Are all the people who arrive at the foyer referred by the local authority, or do they refer themselves? Are they people who have had tenancies and become homeless?
About 65 or 70 per cent of the people would be self-referrals, with a further 10 or 15 per cent from local authorities and other agencies such as citizens advice bureaux, health boards and other organisations in the community that know of us. We have a bigger referral from our area because we are known by young people. People refer themselves directly to the foyer because they know that there are training or work opportunities or advice on other issues.
Was the availability or delay in receiving benefits an issue?
It is for some people, although it depends on whether the young person made themselves intentionally homeless at 16 and whether there was a place at home for them. We have had problems when the parents have said that the children can return home. However, there might be other issues about why the young person does not feel able to return. In cases where young people have been refused benefit, we have in the main worked with the local authority to overcome that problem. Although that is not as big an issue, it still crops up.
I asked that question as a lead-in to one or two points on the proposed housing bill. As you know, the consultation paper contains a proposal to extend the grounds of eviction, in particular to create the grounds of persistent rent arrears and anti-social behaviour. What are your views on the desirability of introducing that measure, especially in regard to the situation of young people?
As we knew that eviction on the ground of anti-social behaviour might be proposed before the proposals were introduced, we tried to highlight courses that might educate young people on acceptable social behaviour. We usually address that issue through the young person's occupancy agreement, because a number of young people think they can do what they like once they are in their own place. The occupancy agreement includes stipulations about noise levels and points about invading other people's privacy; for example, if they interrupt neighbours above or below them, they have to deal with that issue.
That last point is particularly important. A youth perspective is required because, under blanket legislation, young people will be evicted because of anti-social behaviour. We need to ensure that a safety net is in place that allows young people to come and go. Young folk have sometimes left our accommodation because they do not want to meet the criteria that are required of them. They often come back again. Young people sometimes have to learn by their own mistakes, but that should not be the case to the extent that they are excluded permanently and totally from access to housing—which does happen. That is not right; we need to work continually with young people to help them go forward in their lives.
So we need a more sophisticated means of preventing homelessness and strategies to achieve that.
Yes.
I also want to ask about the short single tenancy for temporary lettings. Have you any views on its appropriateness in the context of your experience with young people?
The short single tenancy for temporary lettings could make things difficult for us. The young people who come to us tend to have a myriad of baggage. Sometimes, that can be dealt with through anger management; on other occasions, drug issues are of more relevance. If we used a short assured-type tenancy, under which we had to give notice, and which was six months long, the situation for the other people sharing the flat would be untenable if there was a violent episode during the shared tenancy.
To summarise, would it be fair to say that you want something that gives people a framework of rights and, equally, one of responsibilities that would not tie you down too much, in that you would not be stuck with a difficult tenant who will not modify his ways over a lengthy period. Is that fair?
Yes.
There is an issue about what is included in a short single tenancy, what should be in probationary tenancies and what should be in occupancy agreements. It is about what is appropriate for young people.
The Executive proposes to continue the use of occupancy agreements in a limited number of circumstances, including in short-stay hostels. I know that you do not like the word hostel, I think rightly. Do you see any merit in creating a statutory right for people with occupancy agreements, or in the production of a model occupancy agreement?
I do not have a problem with a model occupancy agreement as long as the people who operate it have a chance to debate what goes in it. That would allow the various groups of people concerned to be considered. We deal with 16 to 25-year-olds, for whom particular problems are relevant. Other groups of people may have other points to make. The model occupancy agreement would be a good thing. Among a young person's rights, there has to be one to review any decisions that are made about them, and there have to be steps to appeal any decision that is made. We use that: young people have the right of appeal and can bring in other agencies or supporters.
To whom would the right of appeal be?
The young people who have tenancies with us can appeal to the executive director; if they are not happy with the result, they can appeal to our chair; if they are not happy with that—or at any stage in their appeal—they can get someone in from another agency, be it social work or housing. We usually get any other support agencies who work with that young person to come in if there is an issue about their occupancy agreement. If we have concerns about the person maintaining their occupancy, or if that that person's behaviour is putting their occupancy at risk, that is discussed. People are not brought in to have their occupancy taken away from them; they are brought in to discuss the issues surrounding their occupancy and how to change them. It is not as straightforward a matter as someone's place simply going.
The Executive proposes to create a set of minimum rights for homeless people in such circumstances, including the right to a minimum of a few days' notice. Would you like those rights to be available to your residents and to the residents of foyers generally?
Our occupancy agreement is closely linked to the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations model occupancy agreement. Those agreements were developed separately, but one can see the links and how we have progressed on rights and responsibilities and have taken on board the SFHA model.
That is an interesting point, which other witnesses, too, have made.
You mentioned the need for an integrated range—a network—of types of accommodation, stretching from hostels through supported accommodation to independent tenancies, all in the social rented sector. You have said that the social rented sector is failing young people in that respect. Do you think that the changes that are proposed in the housing bill and measures such as wholesale stock transfer, under which councils will lose their stock to a series of registered social landlords, and the extension of the right to buy to housing association tenants, will make it more or less likely that someone will take up that challenge?
I believe that the housing bill will give us a good platform on which to progress positively. We have established a framework in which people, including local authorities and registered social landlords, can talk to each other much better than they could before. There is an opportunity to engage in a debate that will work for the interests of the people in the community. We want to ensure that agencies such as ours have a place at the table so that young people can develop to their full potential and are not left to slide off the bottom of the scale while the emphasis is placed on other groups, as tends to be the case.
Surely the Executive's aspiration of a housing sector that is 80 per cent owner-occupied and only 20 per cent rented increases the risk of young people falling off the scale?
Yes. It will have to be provided for that housing associations and other RSLs must meet the needs of young homeless people and people who are at risk and vulnerable.
It is fair to say that it is not common for housing associations to look after such young people? They have not done so in the past and it is asking much of them to do so in the future.
Housing associations should work with other agencies. We do not have all the answers, but there are other youth agencies that provide housing and excellent services. We provide supported youth housing for a couple of housing associations that did not think that they had the skills to do that. Such arrangements could be expanded. Youth housing specialists could be used to provide support in that area in RSL housing.
Who pays for that?
At the moment, funding for that comes through housing benefit.
We have other witnesses from whom we will take evidence today and with whom we will pursue some of the issues that we have discussed with you. Your written evidence describes your experience of the supporting people initiative. I welcome your comments on local authority funding and on who provides what service under the strategy on homelessness that local authorities will have to provide.
Thank you. We are delighted to give evidence to the committee. We have circulated information about the work of Aberdeen Foyer, which has developed over the past five years, and we would be delighted to answer any questions about the range of services that we provide and are continuing to develop.
You are welcome to make some remarks to the committee.
I became homeless a year ago because of a family breakdown. I went to the local council and was put into a hostel with my sister, who is younger than I am. I heard about the Aberdeen Foyer and moved in there. When I moved in, I got a two-bedroom flat.
I have some general questions, and then I would like to talk about the situation in Kirkcaldy, which might illustrate some of the problems. There are 105 foyers in operation throughout the United Kingdom so, basing our estimate on population, we would expect there to be 10 in Scotland. However, expansion in Scotland seems to have been slower than in other parts of the UK. Is there a reason for that?
One reason is that the housing association movement in England is bigger. It is better placed to promote wider action, take up the challenge of developing foyers and—crucially—to fund them. Larger scale social housing associations have been able to do that.
Contrary to some of the leading questions that we have heard from Mr McAllion, the housing associations in England and Wales have been quite innovative, compared with previous public sector failures.
The housing associations have certainly been a driving force in England.
I know that you do not like the word hostel, but I have experience of several local authorities that have provided such accommodation. In some cases, that accommodation has been for only nine or 10 places in a relatively small council area. One council that I have in mind has integrated support from social services and has provided a one-stop shop for training, social support and so on. Quite a few local authorities have done that kind of thing off their own bat. What do you provide that is distinctive?
I emphasise that we are not a hostel—the young people we house are tenants and we operate with short, assured tenancies. Although I recognise the difficulties that Stuart McCrae and Eleanor Campbell told the committee about—we have them too—we went down a slightly different road. We provide high quality accommodation for tenants and that accommodation would not be considered as a hostel.
The question, "What is a foyer?" is fundamentally important. I was involved in setting up Aberdeen Foyer more than five years ago. I then became the Scottish foyer network co-ordinator and work one day a week with the Foyer Federation. Ken Milroy has touched on the three tests that can be used to answer the question of what a foyer is. First, a foyer must focus on disadvantaged young people. Secondly, it must take a holistic approach that recognises that accommodation does not sit in isolation from education, training, personal development and so on. Thirdly—very important and controversial in Scotland—it must involve personal action planning. Each person in the foyer will have an individual action plan that he or she agrees to with the foyer and support worker. For reasons that I find bewildering, many organisations do not like that.
I would like to talk about the situation in Kirkcaldy. I have been to West Bridge Mill, which was previously known as Kirkcaldy Foyer and which your written evidence suggests might become a foyer again. It started as a foyer and it is not a foyer now, but might become a foyer again in the future. Does that illustrate some of the problems that you have encountered? I do not know how many beds the facility has—I suspect that it has about a dozen—but it had a hostel atmosphere. What went wrong with it?
That is difficult to answer fully in this context. When we were working up Aberdeen Foyer, I was the head of social strategy in Grampian Regional Council and made contact with Link Housing Association. I understand that there were a few key issues that were unique to Kirkcaldy. Agencies were considering what to do with the old rope mill and the foyer decided to set up there. The building, in a sense, determined the development—
I must stop you there. We are short of time and are now discussing an individual case.
That illustrates some of the relevant problems. I do not want to go into a great amount of detail, but Aberdeen Foyer is mentioned in the written evidence as a specific example. I am following the written evidence.
Perhaps I can turn the question around and say that what is important in foyer development is that the needs of the area, not the resources, should lead the development. The location of the foyer, its services and the people whom it targets should be based on local research.
Bearing in mind the fact that the proposed housing bill would impose on local authorities a duty to come up with strategies to tackle homelessness, who would determine those local needs? To what degree could the foyers be independent and to what degree would they be driven by local authorities?
There will be inevitable tension. Local authorities should have a responsibility for coming up with such strategies. They are well placed to do that. It is also important that that is done in the context of joined-up action. I do not know if this should be a statutory requirement, but there should be partnerships at local level between the voluntary and private sectors to examine foyer development, for example. Local authorities should have that responsibility.
Link Housing Association was involved and presumably the matter concerns housing associations as well as local authorities.
Statutory responsibility should lie with local authorities. The linkage could be initiated from a range of places, such as housing associations or other organisations in the voluntary sector. There should be a responsibility to ensure that research and action happens at a local level.
Where would funding come from?
The Aberdeen Foyer is creative in putting together cocktails of funding. Ken Milroy could probably identify 20 funding streams that he juggles daily. There must be cocktails of funding—that is the reality of contemporary funding arrangements. It would be useful to have some recognition of instances in which there is joined-up funding. For instance, a social inclusion grant might respond to the fact that there is joined-up action on the ground.
The problem with cocktails of funding is that they are time consuming and prevent people from getting on with their real job.
A great deal of my job is about maintaining that cocktail of funding so that the frontline staff can work with the tenants such as Kerry Wright and the other young people who are involved.
I posed this question to the previous witnesses. The bill proposes that local authorities should have a strategic function in the provision of the necessary services. How do you feel about the absence of provision in areas that do not have partnerships, such as those that exist in Aberdeen and North Lanarkshire? Do you think that the housing bill ought to include a duty on local authorities to provide services or to ensure that services are provided?
The latter.
I agree whole-heartedly. It has taken a while to build up and sustain the partnership that we have achieved in Aberdeen Foyer. The local authority was the critical player in bringing things together. There should be a duty on local authorities to try to bring folk together and, if they cannot do that, to act on the key issues that are faced.
I take it that the main aim of foyers is to enable young people to live independently.
The funding difficulty relates to how we recoup some of our support costs through the housing benefit system. That system does not take into account whether a young person is in training or work. If someone is in high-cost, supported accommodation, we need to charge for that. The housing component of our rent is akin to a housing association or a local authority rent. The key issue is the support element and how that is paid for.
I do not want to go into the issue of changes to housing benefit, as that is not relevant to the housing bill. I will leave things there for now.
In your written submission you say that you would like to take more risks with your admissions policy, but that you recognise that there is a problem with anti-social behaviour on the part of some of your residents. Kerry Wright also mentioned that. Here we have evidence of people citing violence, theft and drugs as reasons for excluding people from a foyer. What happens to people who are excluded from foyers? In a sense, foyers are the end of the line. We can talk about progression, but where do people go if they drop out of the foyer system? They do not go into independent tenancies with housing associations or councils, which still provide good housing across Scotland, despite what my Conservative friend, Keith Raffan, says.
As usual, John, you are out of date.
Those people will not move up the ladder, so there is nowhere for them to go. Is one of the reasons for the continuing increase in homelessness that a number of young people are not being accommodated by the current system? What should happen to them?
Foyers are not the answer to all the difficulties faced by young people.
Is there any other answer for people who would not be allowed into foyers because of their anti-social behaviour?
In Aberdeen, there is provision for more intensive support. Often young people will come to the foyer after they have received that type of provision. Fairly rigorous assessment arrangements are in place for young people who make an application to the foyer. We attempt to minimise the number of occasions on which someone can cause disruption and make the place insecure.
For the record, will you tell us which other organisations look after kids who would not be able to hold down a place in the foyer and how those organisations operate?
The other principal organisation is Aberdeen Cyrenians, which has existed for many years. It gets funding through the rough sleepers initiative to operate Craig House, which accommodates and provides more intensive support to young people who have been, or who are in danger of, sleeping rough. Craig House can provide a level of support and care that we cannot provide because of the way in which we are funded.
Do you believe that there is no reason for any young person to be on the streets, because there is a network of provision across the country?
I do not know whether that provision is extensive, and there are still young people sleeping rough. We recently housed a young person who had been staying in a shed in a rural area. There are some opportunities for young people, but the provision is patchy. We are trying to develop initiatives in the Aberdeenshire area in response to the problems of some of the young people who have knocked on our door.
Some people, through no fault of their own, cannot find a house and are classified as intentionally homeless. How do you feel about the abolition of the concept of people being intentionally homeless? How will local authorities manage that? How does it affect your work and the work of the YMCA when people are labelled as being intentionally homeless?
Many of the young people whom we have rehoused have been deemed intentionally homeless. We have not had to operate within the constraints within which the local authorities have had to operate, so we have benefited the local authorities by taking people. I welcome the fact that the concept of being intentionally homeless will be abolished. Local authorities will be concerned about resources and about how they will respond. We, and a range of voluntary organisations, will want to assist the local authorities to find ways in which to address that concern. The strategies for homeless people, for which the authorities will be responsible, are important and are a key way in which the problems can be addressed.
John McAllion talked about foyers being the end of the line. Will you comment on that? I do not believe that foyers are the end of the line for young people—they are the beginning of their opportunities, as Kerry's story shows. Her story will have been replicated in the Cumbernauld and Kilsyth area. We could bring along a load of young Kerrys who have had similar experiences of the foyer projects.
The link between accommodation, training and learning should be made clear. The Scottish social inclusion network report on excluded young people highlighted the fact that that key link needs to be emphasised. Kerry's learning experience will allow her to move forward in her life and to take up a lot of the good opportunities that we have managed to provide in Aberdeen. It is all about social and economic independence and the way in which the housing bill and the initiatives that will be associated with it will tie in with key policies on training, jobs and learning.
Your paper on tenure in foyers states that you would like a new form of tenancy agreement that would suit foyers and other organisations that operate in a similar way. Do any of the options that have been proposed meet your requirements or is something completely new and different required to suit foyers?
The introductory short tenancy, which we propose in our submission, would meet the requirements, as it would give people time to learn about their responsibilities, which is what Kerry did. We are doing that in practice, but it is not recognised in law or in the tenancies that we offer. It would be useful if it were underpinned by appropriate tenure.
When the bill is published, it would be helpful if you could tell us whether such provisions are included and whether they meet your requirements.
We visited the Aberdeen Cyrenians. I take the point that they offer a fallback position, but they had a pretty limited amount of accommodation. To an extent—I do not want to make too much of a generalisation—young homeless people are drawn to the cities and larger communities. However, there is still a problem in rural areas. There is a greater structure—the foyer and the Cyrenians—in a city such as Aberdeen, than there is in a rural council area such as Perth and Kinross. What are the different requirements and how do we cope with them?
We have established satellite accommodation in other parts of Aberdeen and in south Aberdeenshire. We are currently considering developments in north Aberdeenshire. We build on the resources and expertise that are in place. In smaller townships, we will not replicate what we have done in Aberdeen. We will try to create local provision to meet the needs of young people.
I am afraid that we must bring the session to a close. I thank the witnesses for giving evidence and for their written submission. We will be interested in hearing their comments on the bill when it is published.
Meeting continued in private until 12:37.
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