Housing Strategy

The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 places duties on local authorities around preventing and relieving homelessness, including to intervene earlier to prevent homelessness and to help more people recover and get back on their feet after being made homeless. The Council has always been committed to helping those who are homeless or at risk of being made homeless, and it continues to be a priority area.

Our Homelessness Review 2023 looked at data over four years from 2019-2020 to 2022-2023. In 2022-2023, initial homelessness assessments increased 20.4% from the previous year where assessments were lower in 2021-22 in part due to the Covid-19 pandemic that saw reductions in the number of assessments undertaken nationally.

The Council has a duty to take reasonable steps to help prevent any eligible person who is threatened with homelessness from becoming homeless (the ‘prevention duty’). Where a person is already homeless, the Council has a duty to take reasonable steps to help the person to secure accommodation (the ‘relief duty’). The main reasons for homelessness for applicants owed a prevention duty are the ending of an assured shorthold tenancy, and family or friends no longer willing to accommodate. The main reasons for homelessness for applicants owed a relief duty are domestic abuse, and family or friends no longer willing to accommodate.

Our Housing Solutions team aim to prevent homelessness at the earliest opportunity and have a number of initiatives in place to prevent a person having to leave their existing home or to help them to access alternative accommodation. This includes providing discretionary payments to those in serious financial difficulty, and working with other agencies to provide a Sanctuary Scheme for victims of domestic abuse.

A rough sleeper count was carried out in November 2024, which found that 10 people were sleeping rough, an increase on the 2023 figure of 3. To continue to combat rough sleeping, we aim to have a ‘never give up’ approach to individuals who find it difficult to trust authority and who are reluctant to engage. We also take a trauma informed approach to people who are scared to move on and let them know that other agencies, such as Porchlight and the Dartford Churches Homeless Project (New Avenues), will support them with their meetings with us.

Our Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy 2024-2029 sets out further how we will work to tackle homelessness and offer support to anyone affected by homelessness. The Strategy has been developed based on findings from the Homelessness Review and is underpinned by the following five strategic priorities:

• Early intervention and prevention
• Accommodation
• Support
• Rough sleeping
• Trauma informed approach

The Strategy builds on the good foundations already in place to tackle homelessness. It is our sixth Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy, and commits to strengthen our existing approach to prevent and relieve homelessness, and to focus our efforts on identifying new and innovative ways to respond to the challenges we are likely to face over the coming years.

The Strategy also recognises that delivering our priorities on homelessness and rough sleeping relies on strong and effective partnership working with other organisations in the public, private and voluntary sectors. Some of the key activities we do include:

• Housing Hub (a multi-agency approach to case management)
• Working with landlords and excluders (e.g. family or friends) to sustain accommodation
• Attending Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conferences (MARAC) and Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA)
• Building close working relationships with agencies such as mental health support, drug and alcohol support, and adult social care.

Specific public authorities also have a duty to refer service users who they think may be homeless or threatened with homelessness to the local housing authority. This helps to ensure that services are working together effectively to prevent homelessness by ensuring that peoples’ housing needs are considered when they come into contact with public authorities. We want to increase the level of these referrals from public authorities as well as those organisations who are not subject to the duty to refer.

The progress of delivering the Strategy action plan is reported on an annual basis to the Council’s Housing Advisory Board. Monitoring and updating the Strategy is carried out by Council Officers and presented to the Board who will consider the progress and make any recommendations to Cabinet as appropriate. Some actions completed include:

• A weekly drop-in service where anyone can access our service to gain quick housing advice was established in February 2024.
• The Landlords Forum, which provides an opportunity for landlords to meet on a regular basis with the council, resumed in 2024. Meeting dates for 2025 have been confirmed.
• A mystery shopping exercise was completed in September 2024, and is to be repeated annually. Lessons learned from the exercise will be used to improve customer experience.

Temporary accommodation

The Council has a statutory duty to provide interim accommodation for eligible, homeless households in priority need; as prescribed under housing legislation. Interim accommodation is provided whilst inquiries are made regarding the homeless application. Once the Council is satisfied that an applicant is homeless, eligible for assistance, in priority need and not intentionally homeless, a main housing duty is owed. This means the Council must provide temporary accommodation until the duty is ended. Temporary accommodation will be provided until the applicant’s housing can be suitably resolved by a final offer of accommodation, and the homelessness duties discharged.

The Council’s Temporary Accommodation Strategy sets out our approach to procuring interim and temporary accommodation for those households that meet the criteria set out in legislation. The Strategy is currently being reviewed.

Table 2: Number of households placed in temporary accommodation

The number of households placed in short term temporary accommodation is shown in Table 2 below. The table is broken down by the number of households with dependent children, placed in and out of the borough.

Table 3: Number of households placed in leased accommodation

Some of the temporary accommodation the Council provides is through privately leased properties (the Dartford Private Leasing Scheme or ‘DPLS’). Table 3 below shows the number of households placed in DPLS accommodation, broken down by households with dependent children.

We seek to accommodate homeless households within the borough wherever possible. The drivers of increasing statutory homelessness are ongoing and varied. It is likely the cost-of-living crisis, and rapidly rising rents have led to an increase in evictions. There is also an increase in landlords leaving the private rented sector, adding to evictions. The increase in homeless applications has meant that demand outweighs the supply of temporary accommodation within the borough. This is exacerbated by London Councils procuring temporary accommodation in Dartford as it is less expensive; coupled with London Councils being able to afford to pay more rent to landlords due to higher levels of Housing Benefit payable in London.

For households initially placed outside of the borough, we endeavour to obtain accommodation back within the borough as soon as possible to minimise the impact on education, employment and family support networks. Priority is given to those families whose children are near exam age and also those who need support or provide support in the Dartford area.