The agony of housing the homeless in Cardiff
By Lela E. Madjiah
Housing the homeless is a problem shared by cities the world over. The writer noted a similar problem during her recent 10- week stay in Cardiff, Wales. The following addresses the challenges faced by the city authorities in providing the homeless with permanent shelter.
By Lela E. Madjiah
CARDIFF, Wales (JP): Lovers may find a bed-and-breakfast weekend unforgettably romantic, but to a homeless mother like Gillian Tarr it was simply a devastating experience.
Although it provided her with shelter, the bed-and-breakfast accommodation was not suitable for her family - or any family for that matter - and as the weekend stretched into four weeks she and her children found it hard to cope with.
"There was only one room for me and my three sons. There was no cooking or washing facilities. The only thing we had in our room was a kettle and a television set," said the 34-year-old divorcee.
Her three sons - Kevin, 16, Andrew, 14, and Steven, 11 - were very unhappy they fought a lot, lost weight and found studying impossible.
It was not the only problem they had. As it was a hotel, there were people coming and going constantly and they were of different characters, some difficult to cope with.
"There was a man who always locked the bathroom door from the outside although it was empty, so we could not use it," Gillian recalled.
The mother and her three sons found themselves without a home upon her return from France where she spent almost two years working. When she left for Paris in February 1992, her marriage was already in trouble and after she arrived home in September last year she decided to have a divorce.
However her husband had leased out their house and she and her sons will have to wait until next month to return to their big house.
"My sons and I spent about four weeks staying with different people. Then I started to find help from the (housing) council and they provided us with the bed-and-breakfast accommodation," said Gillian.
Even before she went to the council for help, she had tried to find private rented accommodations.
"But they were simply out of my reach. They required a deposit of between 400 and 500 pounds a month, a bank and employment references, which I didn't have. Besides, the rents were a lot higher, 400 pounds a month, which is twice the council rent," she said.
Following her divorce, Gillian has lived on social security benefits which entitles her to 103 pounds per week in income support plus 26 pounds in family allowance. With that amount, there was no question of her renting a private home.
After four weeks at the bed-and-breakfast, Gillian decided she had enough and went to the council to say she would prefer going back to living separately from her children.
"When I got there they told me they had sent a letter to inform me they had found a house for us," she said.
Gillian Tarr's complaints about the bed-and-breakfast period was not exclusively hers. Many families have reported similar problems and starting this year the Cardiff City Housing Department (housing council) has decided to stop sending families waiting to be housed to any bed-and-breakfast.
"It was never a good option. We were never happy with that because they are too expensive in terms of what we get from the amount we spent," said Sue Woodward, principal homelessness officer.
A bed-and-breakfast accommodation costs 50 pounds per adult per week and half that amount for children, she added.
Despite what she considered a traumatic experience, Gillian Tarr considered herself lucky because the council found her permanent accommodation in a relatively short time. Many have to wait longer, even months, before they can be permanently housed.
"Usually it takes around 30 days before we can tell applicants whether they meet the requirements for our housing. Sometimes they have to wait for eight months," said Sue Woodward.
The long wait is due to the detective-like work homelessness section officers have to go through to make sure applicants deserve the council housing.
"Sometimes we find that people apply for the council housing not because they cannot afford to rent privately-owned accommodations but because they spend their money on unnecessary things," said Sue Woodward. "In other words, their earnings would have covered the house rents had they spent them better."
In such cases, she said, the council rejects their applications.
Backward
Housing the homeless is a never-ending task for all city authorities, Cardiff included. As one family gets into their permanent shelters, more are queuing for their turn. In 1991-1993 the Cardiff Housing Council received 2,764 inquiries from the homeless. Only 1,045 people could be placed in temporary accommodations, 487 of whom were found permanent homes.
The problem of housing the homeless in Britain was first raised in London, and, like a contagious disease, it has spread to all over the country.
"I feel like we're going backward," said Jacqi Bowen, press officer of the Cardiff Housing Council.
"There were no street people or beggars when I was young, they were something unheard of in Cardiff then," she reminisced.
The council has three hostels and 124 leased properties to shelter them and as priority is given to homeless families, single people sometimes end up on the street, said Jacqi.
According to Sue Woodward, in some cases street sleeping is a matter of choice as those who do it want it that way. They are what the housing authorities describe as people with personality problems.
Gillian Tarr shared her argument.
"Fifteen years ago I met a beggar and he turned out to be a former bank manager. He had a good job, a wonderful family, and one day he simply walked out of it all. Enough is enough, it's something like that and it's difficult to explain," said Gillian.
"We believe people like him have mental problems. There are more people like them now may be because life is harder and they cannot handle the stress," said Gillian.
The Tresillian House, one of the hostels which takes in single people, currently has 20 people, including five women, with such "personality" problems.
"We give them three months to work with us and solve their problems, and at the end of the period we make an assessment to decide whether they can enter the 'Move-on Program'," said Anthony D'morgannwg, a staff member of the hostel.
He said most of the people there either have drinking or drug problems.
The 'Move-on Program' will provide the residents with housing once they are declared capable of living on their own and have completely solved their problems.
"But sometimes they stay here over a year. The average time is six months," said D'morgannwg.
He pointed out that in the past it was mostly elderly people with drinking problems.
"Today there are more younger people on the drugs. It's nothing like heroin or cocaine, but mostly Valium which is easy to get and which they mix with drinks," he explained.
"And many of them are not from Cardiff or even Wales. They mostly come from either England or Scotland, running away from their problems," he added.
The problems could be anything, from running away from criminal gangs or being thrown out by parents for getting pregnant.
Sue Woodward said the council is carrying out research to find out why people live on the street.
"The survey will be completed next year," she said.
Legislation change
Sue Woodward also blamed the homelessness problem to the change in legislation in 1989, which introduced a short tenancy period - the six-month tenancy - which allows landlords to give only two-month's notice before forcing their tenants to leave. At the end of the tenancy landlords usually raise their rents and as people cannot pay the required amount they become homeless.
"People can get kicked out anytime and that's what happens," she said.
The "right to buy" scheme introduced 15 years ago is also partly responsible for the homeless problem.
"People started to buy houses only to find they could not really afford it and end up without shelter because they do not fall under the category who can claim housing benefit," said Andrew Price, senior homelessness officer.
Those who cannot pay their mortgage usually fail to take into consideration the fact that they have to pay for the maintenance of their homes, Sue Woodward added.
Another factor is the Government's 1981 policy to make the private sector a lot more dominant by shifting the responsibility of building council houses from the housing department to private housing associations.
"But there is the problem of land scarcity, which makes land prices high. The housing associations can only finance 60 to 70 percent of the construction costs and have to raise money through finance institutions and charge higher rents to make up for the costs," said Price.
Recent threat
The homeless are facing another threat, the most recent one, which came with the Government plans to change the housing laws which give homeless families priority to council housing.
If the proposals handed in by Housing Minister Sir George Young in February become law, housing councils will only be able to provide bed-and-breakfast accommodations for a limited period.
Cardiff city council housing chairman David Hutchinson said: "It's turning back the clock to the days of Cathy Come Home."
Hutchinson was referring to a movie in the 1970s, which depicted the housing conditions for the homeless at that time. Prior to 1977, the task of housing the homeless lay with the social services department. They provided hostels for mothers with babies, single fathers with children, elderly people, and grandparents with dependent children. Couples were separated because if a couple had a baby, only the mother and the baby were housed and the father had to find his own shelter.
"It was a bad situation and then there was this movie Cathy Come Home, which moved a lot of people and put pressures on the government," said Sue Woodward.
People believed that families should not be separated and if they were forced to, it should be done by law, she added.
"That was why the Government transferred the responsibility to the housing department, which had to build houses for the homeless and which put families together," she said.
According to Hutchinson, if Sir George Young's proposals become law, the council will no longer be able to help people who are about to become homeless.
"The problems for cities like Cardiff is that we don't have enough houses available at a time when more and more families are coming to us for help," he said.
Since 1981, said Hutchinson, the government has stopped the council from building houses and at the same time made it sell 8,000 of its houses - which was one third of its stock.
The government believes, however, that homeless families should not be allowed to jump the queue for council housing.
Ministers say families on the waiting list get a raw deal and insisted that a fairer system should be brought in which gives everyone a fair chance.
Housing Minister Sir George Young said: "In some parts of the country it is now virtually impossible for anyone other than homeless households to get a council priority."
Which may be true.
"I know a family which deliberately failed to pay rents for two years and were forced out of their council housing. They are now waiting to be rehoused. They did that because they wanted a bigger house," said Gillian Tarr.
Giorgio Menin, a bed-and-breakfast proprietor, strongly supported the proposals.
"Many people, particularly the younger ones, take advantage of the housing policy. They deliberately make themselves homeless to get a council house while their parents have to work all their lives to buy a decent home," said Menin.