Blog: Shropshire Council’s housing team – saving money and changing lives

Blog

How our housing team has achieved over £1 million in savings this year so far, and is on goal to make a further £7.9 million in savings in the next three years, whilst helping hundreds of vulnerable residents find a home.

Introduction

Homelessness is a complex and challenging issue that affects many people in Shropshire and across the country. The pandemic and the cost of living crisis have increased the demand for housing support and temporary accommodation, putting a strain on the council’s budget and resources.

However, despite these difficulties, our housing team has been working hard to find innovative and effective solutions to reduce the use of expensive bed and breakfast accommodation, improve the customer journey, and provide intensive housing support to those who need it most.

In this blog post, we will share with you some of the achievements and projects of our team, as well as some of the stories of the people we have helped to move on from homelessness to independent living.

Rough sleeper in Shrewsbury

Achieving savings

One of the main goals of our team is to save money for the council by reducing the reliance on bed and breakfast accommodation.

We have seen numbers as high as 330 households at any one time being placed into temporary accommodation, and numbers as high as 220 households being accommodated into bed and breakfast accommodation across the county and surrounding areas. The cost of bed and breakfast accommodation has been costing the council up to £3.2 million a year.

To achieve these huge savings, over the past 12 months the temporary accommodation team have been negotiating with many local landlords and encouraged them to cut their nightly costs by more than half; with some landlords even agreeing to change the use of their accommodation from B&B into a hostel setting, enabling the service to achieve even further savings.

Our key focus has been around developing our temporary accommodation offer with wraparound support. Accommodating homeless households in B&B/hotel accommodation is often unsuitable due to the lack of space and facilities, and the difficulty in providing support to them in that setting, in addition to the high cost this represents for the council.

Providing temporary accommodation with wraparound and tailored support will help to address barriers to independent living in the community and in the home, and help individuals to move on to longer-term accommodation and into work, education or training.

As a result of these efforts, we have seen a significant decrease in the number of households in bed and breakfast accommodation, from 220 to 98 (though these figures will fluctuate according to demand), while nationally the use of temporary accommodation is on the rise. This has enabled us to save over £1 million in the last year, and we are aiming to save a further £7.9 million over the next three years.

Improving the customer journey

Another key aspect of our work is to improve the customer journey from the first point of contact to the final move on from temporary accommodation. We have streamlined our processes and systems to make them more efficient and user-friendly, and we have implemented a new risk assessment platform, appointments system, customer portal, and allocations process.

These improvements will help us to manage rents, service charges, compliance, and reporting more effectively, and to communicate better with our customers and other services. We will also be introducing a supporting people portal, which enables our housing support team and floating support to provide more structured and tailored support to our customers, and to help them become tenancy ready and achieve successful move on.

Developing new projects

In addition to our ongoing work, we have also been developing new and exciting projects to create more self-contained temporary accommodation units throughout Shropshire, where we can offer more support and facilities to our customers. We have been awarded multi-million-pound grants from external funding to utilise Shropshire Council stock and develop properties into intensive housing support facilities.

We are currently working on several projects, which will create over 100 units in different locations across the county. These projects will enable us to reduce our dependence on bed and breakfast accommodation, and to make ultimate savings of nearly £8 million in the next three years.

Changing lives

Finally, we will be sharing with you some of the stories of the people we have helped to move on from homelessness to independent living. These stories illustrate the positive impact of our work, and the difference we can make in the lives of our most vulnerable residents.

One of these stories is Peter’s, who contacted us in October 2023, after returning from Asia, where he had lost most of his sight due to a botched cataract operation. He had no access to his own money or benefits, and he had to move out of his sister’s place, where he was staying temporarily.

Peter in Broseley

With the help of Christine, his housing support officer, Peter was able to overcome many challenges and find a suitable home in a bungalow in Broseley with Shropshire Towns and Rural Housing (STAR Housing). Christine helped Peter to complete all the necessary paperwork, organise transport, access funds, and link with specialist support. Peter also underwent another operation on his eyes, which restored some of his sight.

Since then, Peter has become a volunteer for STAR Housing, and participates in tenant groups and boards. He also has a bus pass, which allows him to travel more and enjoy day trips. Peter is very happy with his new home and his new life, and he is grateful for the support he received from our team.

Conclusion

We hope you have enjoyed reading this blog post, and that you have learned more about the work of our housing team. We are proud of our achievements and our projects, and we are committed to continue saving money and changing lives for the benefit of Shropshire and its residents.

If you would like to know more about our Shropshire Council’s housing services, please visit our website at Housing | Shropshire Council.