Housing of vulnerable people - Grantham Journal 27 January 2008

Our Council house system has always been based on giving first call on housing to families with children, to the disabled and to old people. That is the order of priorities I have always supported, as I think most reasonable people do.

When I heard, two or three years ago, that the Government were proposing to extend priority rights to three new categories of people, alcoholics, drug abusers and released prisoners (all defined as “vulnerable people”) my first thought was that they had gone quite mad.

I remember asking Duncan Kerr, the Chief Executive of South Kesteven District Council (and a very considerable expert on housing, as on all other things connected with local government), “Do you mean that if I go out, get drunk, get a fix and punch you hard in the face you will have to give me a Council House?” The answer was more or less “yes”.

On further reflection – and long before I joined the Labour Party – I began to see the point of the policy. These three categories of people find it particularly difficult to find private rented accommodation for themselves. They are therefore quite likely to end up on the street. There they will have nothing to lose and be a public menace even if they do not turn to crime. Ex-prisoners with no address will not find a job. Their chances of going straight will be minimal. Society will not benefit from that.

But if you are going to house them, where are you going to put them? The only housing suitable for single people the Council have is flats intended for older people. Should you impose such “vulnerable” people on communities of our senior citizens? Are not the latter vulnerable too – indeed innocently vulnerable?

For a long time that has been exactly what has happened. I have had many complaints from older residents and have been deeply disturbed about the situation. I have had several meetings on the subject with both Duncan Kerr and with leading councillors.

My own view has always been that the only solution is to find a location where this new class of “vulnerable people” can be housed in a scheme without older people. That means that the latter would have to be offered a voluntary move on attractive terms. It also means finding a location where there are unlikely to be overwhelming objections from other neighbours. And yet it also means not putting these younger tenants in a remote or rural location where they have no hope of finding a job.

So far we have never been able to find an answer that met all these requirements. Two weeks ago I had one of my regular meetings with Duncan Kerr and made a suggestion which he is doing further work on. I hope it proves the basis of the solution we have been seeking.

If so, I hope it will be a triple win – for older residents, for the younger “vulnerable” homeless, and for the people of Grantham who I certainly don’t believe want anyone, whatever his or her faults, sleeping on the streets.