Borough council could buy 30 one-bedroom homes for Northampton's rough sleepers

Northampton Borough Council's cabinet has voted in favour to buy 30 one-bedroom homes for the homeless.

It comes after a successful pilot scheme where Northampton Partnership Homes bought 24 ex-council homes in June, which were fomerly sold under the Right To Buy.

Twenty-two of the properties are now occupied by homeless households and others will be for temporary accomodation.

On May 24, the Government announced its plan to invest in 6,000 long-term supported homes for rough sleepers.

Speaking at the meeting, cabinet member for housing and wellbeing Steven Hibbert, said: "This report is about options for further housing aquisitions, which follows on from a successful pilot scheme during which we aquired 24 properies.

"It proposes to extend that scheme and to include any suitable homes not just ex-council houses and it also seeks to expand on the scheme to house rough sleepers through the Governments 'move-on initiatives'.

"In that respect we are seeking funding from Homes England and MHCLG through which we hope to aquire 30 beds and six HMOs."

As of July 17, 194 families were living in temporary accomodation where the nightly rate for one-bedroom is charged to the borough council at £34.

He added: "It is important to note the positive impact on nightly purchased temporary accomodation by moving familes who have spent the longest in temportary accomodation into the newly purchased properties through direct lets. That progress we would want to continue through the new options.

"Important lessons have been learned from the pilot scheme."

Progress will be monitored by a multi-disciplinary group and will report to the overview and scrutiny committee with regular updates on the scheme.

Councillor Danielle Stone: "I think the way the housing crisis is being tackled by the borough, I really approve of it. I'm really glad scrutiny has had a good look at everything to do with housing - the homelessness strategy, the rough sleeping strategy, the acquisitions and I think absolutley that is the way to go.

"I do think we need to be even more rigourous in a way, though, because I'm really worried about the length of time people are in temporary accomodation and I'm worried about the impact that has on family life and the impact it has on children.

"I'm also really mindful of the fact, during the COVID crisis, that a lot of my constituents who are living in socially overcrowded conditions have found life absolutley intolerable and the impact it's had on their children and on their main carer has been awful to be honest with you. I think we still have a housing crisis in Northampton and I think, I don't know, do we have a cap on how long people are allowed to stay in temporary accomodation before we move them onto permanent accomodation?

"I don't understand why so many people are in temporary accomodation to be honest with you, I know people hit crisis points in their life but if they're entitled to council housing they are entitled to council housing and I don't see why we can't move people on more quickly."

Councillor Hibbert added: "There is a housing crisis continuning, we are concerned about it and we are doing something about it.

"Whether that's ever enough, is always going to be an issue. We have a duty to house the homeless, so temporary accomodation has to be the first resort."