Don’t mention support

The supported housing sector has understandably been paying a lot of attention to government proposals to introduce the LHA cap. The proposals have caused widespread anxiety amongst tenants and landlords alike. The uncertainty over how the top up fund would work and whether it would have any long term protection has led to a big slow down in the amount of new supported housing provision being developed.

After intense lobbying from tenants, carers groups, national and local providers and charities; and after recommendations from MPs on the communities and local government and work and pension committees in parliament; it finally looks as though the government is about to abandon the plans and think again.

It’s certainly good news. Supported housing tenants look set to be spared from a position where their ordinary housing costs would cease to be met through a rights based benefit and where they would have to rely on a discretionary and cash limited local authority pot to keep a roof over their head. But as we’ve stood transfixed by this looming threat of the LHA cap, light fingered local authorities have reached into our back pockets and taken much of what remained of the already depleted Supporting People funding.

If plans to introduce the mother of all postcode lotteries to the funding of essential housing costs has been seen off let’s cheer; but let’s not think that the future of supported housing is safe. Larger than normal communal areas, a lift where there might have been stairs, and perhaps some enhanced security measures, might all be common in supported housing schemes. But they are not enough on their own to make it supported housing.

In many areas floating support has become a distant memory. Now the loss of revenue funding for vital support workers, scheme managers and hostel workers is gathering a pace. Many providers of supported and sheltered housing are having to reduce staffing levels, restrict access to services and generally limit their ambitions for their services and those who use them. As older schemes reach the end of their natural life many are not being replaced in a like for like way.

So one cheer for the end of the LHA cap. Now let’s get back to making the case for a re-imagined and reinvigorated supported housing sector where the housing and the support is adequately and sustainably funded; and the contribution supported housing can make to the wider health and wellbeing agenda is better understood.