New GLC prevention of homelessness report published online

GLC's Prevention of Homelessness Project (POHP) has prevented 1,200 people in the Southside of Glasgow becoming homeless in the last two years. Govan Law Centre has run the Prevention of Homelessness Project in the city's South West based upon the belief that early intervention and holistic multidisciplinary services, tailored to each individual, can help prevent unnecessary evictions.

In our new POHP progress report for the Oak Foundation - which is published online here: 'Download GLC POHP report as PDF' - we explain how our new project has prevented 1,200 people from becoming homeless, saving about £25.5million in public money from December 2010 to December 2012. We believe if the approach of our scheme was extended nationwide it could potentially save the Scottish Government as much as £320m.

Mike Dailly, GLC's principal solicitor, said: "With our project, we show that early intervention works, but also that it has to be co-ordinated. Often people who are in these difficult situations will not go for help early on. We provide not just very fast specialist legal and money advice services, but we can also connect the person with any other services he or she may need."

The project employs a partnership between the centre, Govan Money Matters Advice Centre and Glasgow City Council's Southside Social Work Department, as well as different voluntary organisations, such as the Scottish Association For Mental Health.

It is designed to highlight that eviction and repossession are usually the tip of a whole range of social and associated problems for those who are vulnerable to the risk of homelessness.

The project recognises there are important indicators that could result in problems leading to eviction and homelessness. These could include those in rent arrears or living in poverty, or those with social worries, such as health or mental health problems.

People who look vulnerable are flagged up by the partnership to the Law Centre early on, which can then intervene or refer them to the appropriate support.

Alistair Sharp, GLC's senior project coordinator, said: "We are looking at savings to the public purse and preventing people facing the trauma of eviction and homelessness. Court action can be avoided by early intervention."

New GLC prevention of homelessness report published online

Recruitment: temporary solicitor position at Govan Law Centre

Govan Law Centre has a vacancy for a temporary, qualified solicitor who must hold a full and unrestricted practising certificate from the Law Society of Scotland.

You must have experience in the field of civil litigation and court experience; knowledge of housing or employment law, and social welfare law would be an advantage.

This is a short term, temporary position. Salary negotiable. If you meet our criteria, please apply in writing with an up-to-date CV to Candy Walker, Service Manager at Govan Law Centre by e-mail to CWalker @govanlc.com. Closing date is 4pm, Friday, 25 January 2013. No applications will be considered after the closing date. No agency applications please.

Recruitment: temporary solicitor position at Govan Law Centre

Free places for local people to attend Prevention of Homelessness report launch

Two years ago Govan law Centre was awarded three years funding by the Oak Foundation to develop our 'Your Home Your Rights’ Prevention of Homelessness project.  We have produced a bi-annual progress report describing how we have expanded our homelessness prevention work, and stopped people and their families from losing their homes through eviction or repossession. 

Over 1,200 people have received GLC's free, independent and confidential prevention of homelessness services during the last two years in Glasgow, and our report describes –

* how we have achieved this;

* how we have developed our innovative service to be more effective;

* improvements to our early intervention work;

* access to our money and benefits advice services and other support; and

* how we have provided the much needed expert legal advice and representation when people come to us in crisis with their housing problems.

 

We are holding an event to launch our report on 29^th January 2013, 10:30 (with lunch at 12:00) at The Victory Centre, 285 Langlands Road, Govan, Glasgow, G51 4AS.

There are 10 free places available for anyone living or working in the Greater Govan or Pollok areas. 

 

If you would like to book a free place then please phone Anne-Marie O’Brien at Govan Law Centre on 0141 440 2503. Please apply early as places are limited.  We look forward to seeing you there.

Free places for local people to attend Prevention of Homelessness report launch

Scotland lags behind the rest of the UK in protecting consumers against claims management companies

The Claims Management Regulation Unit shut down 209 claims management companies (CMCs) in England and Wales between April and November in 2012. Three more rogue firms were suspended and a further 140 were warned. 

The unit, which is part of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) for England and Wales, is also working with the UK's data watchdog to tackle firms who break the law with unsolicited calls and texts. The MoJ has now shut down over 900 CMCs over the last five years, meanwhile CMCs operating in Scotland remain wholly unregulated and free to rip-off Scottish consumers with impunity.

GLC's Principal Solicitor, Mike Dailly said: "Scotland is now seriously lagging behind the rest of the UK when it comes to protecting consumers from the rogue practices of claims management companies. CMCs have a licence to do as they please in Scotland, with no regulation, minimum standards or consumer friendly rights of redress. In short, CMCs can rip off Scottish customers without fear of any sanction. It is troubling indeed that the Justice Secretary in Scotland does not feel it important to give Scottish consumers the same quality of protection that exists in England and Wales".

CMCs frequently engage in high pressured cold-calling or texting, taking up-front fees from customers through credit and debit card payments over the phone. This year CMCs in England and Wales will be obliged to provide written contract in advance of taking fees, with the Legal Ombudsman being empowered to regulate complaints and award compensation where appropriate. 

Claims firm advertise widely on TV, newspapers and the internet and are not solely concerned with PPI (payment protection insurance claims), for example they encourage people to sue for personal injury compensation, and for other losses. Some firms also use improper cold-calling, by phone or text, to procure clients.

Scotland lags behind the rest of the UK in protecting consumers against claims management companies

An end to homelessness in Scotland?

Hogmanay marks the abolition of the priority need test in homelessness law, and the crystallisation of the Scottish Government’s promise to 'end homelessness' in Scotland. Any individual who becomes homeless unintentionally has been promised the right to a home. What does this promise mean in practice? Will people really have the right to a permanent home in Scotland?

In practice, local authorities already side step statutory homelessness duties by turning single homeless people away, telling them there is no available temporary accommodation. This is unlawful but it happens every day in Scotland, and can be very difficult to detect or prove. Why don’t councils have sufficient temporary accommodation?

Ultimately, it’s the lack of a joined-up national housing policy, whereby the specific policy of large-scale stock transfer has meant that many local authorities have no houses at all. Add this to the fact the 2001 Housing (Scotland) Act contains no power for councils to require housing associations to accommodate homeless persons on a temporary or interim basis, and you have a bottle neck in a system where demand always outstrips supply.

Of course living in a temporary furnished flat, or more typically a homeless hotel or bed and breakfast room, is not the same thing as the promise of a permanent home. Much of Scotland’s private sector temporary accommodation ranges from low quality to shockingly bad, if you are lucky enough to get it. 

The reality is we don’t have enough good quality social housing in Scotland; we need to build more, and giving people legal rights to such homes is meaningless unless they are available to let. Indeed it could be argued that raising expectations of access to good quality, decent homes is unfair and unhelpful if many people may never get one.

Our homelessness laws look fantastic on paper but we have a stretched and broken system on the ground, with a lack of infrastructure. And that system will be unable to cope with the additional homelessness caused by the bedroom tax cuts from April, and thereafter the hideous problems created by the universal credit system in October.

If we want to end homelessness in Scotland there is no better starting point than doing much more to prevent it. The Scottish Government has the power to prevent increased homelessness from the bedroom tax cuts, which will adversely affect 95,000 Scottish households from April.

Govan Law Centre (GLC), the STUC and Shelter Scotland are calling for a change in the law to prevent evictions based on bedroom tax arrears, by instead treating such arrears as an ordinary debt. GLC has already drafted a simple solution which the Scottish Government has agreed to look at.

Local authorities must be allowed to build or acquire more homes, or at least be empowered to formally require housing associations to assist them in meeting their emergency homelessness duties, particularly so with the Homelessness (Abolition of Priority Need Test) (Scotland) Order 2012 coming into force on 31 December.

Unless we act now to prevent the expected evictions from next year’s welfare reform cuts, and recognise the need to improve our social housing infrastructure in Scotland, the right to a home may become nothing more than a promise which cannot be honoured.

An end to homelessness in Scotland?