1. Introduction

This is a report of Path’s activities and service provision for the period April 2006 to March 2007. It contains brief summaries of services provided, with statistics to illustrate what was achieved.

Path continues to be a major voluntary sector provider of services to homeless people in Plymouth. Services cover various points on the pathway from homelessness to sustained tenancies.

2006 saw many changes for Path. We continued to provide support to rough sleepers but with a more assertive approach, in line with the City strategy we participated in developing. We established the re-configured Assessment and Advice Service (PAAS) and set up a whole new service for offenders in the Gateway (a team of 5). A new Landlord Liaison post joined our Rent Deposit team; while we set up the Refugee Housing Support Service with START, a new partnership approach to providing tenancy support to refugees.

For the year ahead, we shall continue all of this, adding a new post to PAAS to provide support to people using mental health services. But an even bigger issue for Path, affecting all services, is the change in legislation related to rent deposits for private tenancies. This has been a catalyst for a significant project for us, affecting – and led by – our Rent Deposit Team, in particular. Indeed, the last months of 2006 / 07 saw significant work to prepare for, and maximise opportunities from, this change.

For all services, though, continual review and development mean that change is continuous. Further, although an ‘internal’ matter, our database is a major tool for us, a resource that has been substantially developed in the last year and will become even more important in the future, for monitoring and reporting, for reviewing and for researching and learning.

2. Significant Developments

2006 / 07 was an exciting year for Path. Some of the developments we worked on included:

• Publication of the Plymouth Rough Sleeper strategy
• A successful (low) rough sleeper count in December 06
• A new Landlord Liaison post (funded by The Big Lottery)
• Further development of our Rent Deposit service
• Re-configuration and development of some existing services into the Plymouth Advice and Assessment Service (PAAS)

• Work with START to provide the Refugee Housing Support Service (RHSS)
• Development of our client and support (assessment) systems
• A new Gateway service to provide additional housing support to offenders
• Further development of our website, partly to reflect and promote the above

Other developments have included three workers completing Certificates In Housing, plus partnership work with our neighbours (Tenant Participation and Petra) on improving the Harwell Centre.

3. Services

Rough Sleeping: Outreach

Path carries out outreach work for people who are sleeping rough in the City. Workers make twice-weekly visits to known rough sleeper sites in Plymouth to identify, build relationships with and support those sleeping rough, offering skilled advice and active support to move off the streets.

For 2006 / 07:

• 2 sessions were provided per week
• 238 individuals were seen
• 965 contacts were made

Rough Sleeper Advice

Monday to Friday, am & pm

During the week, Rough Sleeper workers are available for drop-in sessions and appointments in the Harwell Centre. These sessions provide information and advice for people (at risk of) sleeping rough, with referral to other agencies and the City Council after an assessment of a client’s housing and related needs.

• 504 individuals seen
• 1132 contacts
• 131 referrals to Gates night-shelter

These figures reflect significant numbers of people who are vulnerable to sleeping rough using the service to gain access to accommodation, this indicated both through use of advice sessions and generally lower numbers sleeping rough.

Indeed, the official rough sleeper count in December 06 found just 3 people on the street. This reflected continuing work not just by Path and the Housing Dept but other key partners, especially hostels, to work ever more effectively and flexibly to meet people’s needs.

In the last quarter of this year the team piloted different service delivery, which allowed them to be more proactive in working with rough sleepers. By reducing the number of drop-in sessions the team is able to set appointments for rough sleepers, allowing workers, on “extended” outreach, to find and support rough sleepers on the streets or in other partner agencies a rough sleeper may be using.

RSI Strategy

PATH employs the RSI Coordinator who takes a lead on reviewing, developing and implementing the local Rough Sleeper strategy. During this period the draft full strategy was reviewed and a summary document produced, becoming the RS focus for the city.

Other matters for the RSI Coordinator included overseeing changes to the Path (RS) drop-in, working to prioritise more time for outreach work with those already on the street. The Coordinator now formally manages Path’s RS work, giving the whole team a clearer identity and focus. This allowed the coordinator to monitor, support and direct the work before, during and then after the official Rough Sleeper Count.

A significant matter, too, was the ‘encampment’ of tents at West Hoe: the Coordinator played a vital role in developing a city approach to the rough sleeping there. Plus, we were active in meetings regarding Gates development and the RSI Group.

The RS Coordinator and RS team at Path worked with the Housing Dept and other key partners to significantly join up and add momentum to the partnerships and messages that the City strategy had introduced. A firmer stance on sleeping rough being unacceptable, more detailed and action-based monitoring of rough sleepers, reconnection work and improved access to hostels all contributed to improving the success of outreach work not just for the count (where 3 people were found, down from 17 a year before) but for the future, too.

Specific Coordinator tasks included:

• Meeting monthly and continuing to support the RSI Steering Group in delivering services according to the summary strategy
• Developing and implementing the interim severe weather plan during cold weather periods
• Working on the development of the Street Outreach Team, meeting with prospective team members / agencies. Writing a working plan for the Team
• Attending Vulnerable Adults meetings on behalf of the Rough Sleepers Team
• Advising a group re the Serious Untoward Incident regarding the death on the streets of a rough sleeper
• Working on a development plan for the Soup Run

Partners in rough sleeping work

Housing Dept; Ship hostel; Salvation Army; Soup Run; Shekinah; Plymouth House; Plymouth Supporting People; Glenbourne Unit; Spring Project; Harbour.

---

Gateway

The Gateway is a new service, running since 4 Sept 06. It is funded by the Home Office through the Regional Offender Manager (ROM) Unit and Devon & Cornwall Probation Area (DCPA), being part of the SWAG: South West Accommodation Gateway. The pilot ends in March 08, till then the priorities being:

• provision of housing support to offenders to enable better use of existing services and options
• research into the housing needs of offenders in, and returning to, Plymouth and the impact of additional support
• strategic work that highlights and improves the response to the housing needs of offenders

The Gateway takes referrals from, especially, prisons and probation services. The team continually seeks accommodation for offenders, consistently signposting to relevant services, and loosely co-ordinates & monitors client progress through staged accommodation via a series of interventions across and linked with many varied agencies and services across the city.

From the start of the service (Sept 06 to Mar 07):

• Total Number of referrals: 318
  (Male: 290; Female: 28)
• Total Number of referrals accommodated: 74
• Number of clients referred into tenancy support: 24

Strategic work included: identification and joining up of opportunities for offenders; building links with the Housing Dept and accommodation providers; helping secure funding for drugs training for homeless services; significant levels of data work as part of the research element of the service; and starting to identify and develop better access to living skills opportunities for offenders.

Additional outcomes have included: rent deposits & additional funding sourced (eg from British Legion) for offender housing; additional funding toward refurbishment of Path building; bridge-building between statutory and voluntary sector agencies; offender issues represented on a variety of relevant forums and groups.

Partners

Key partners are prisons and probation, along with Harbour, hostels and supported accommodation providers and private landlords. But PAAS (following) is the main partner in service delivery, taking many of its referrals from the Gateway.

---

PAAS: Specialist Assessment and Advice

PAAS stands for Plymouth Assessment and Advice Service. It provides in-depth housing needs assessments and advice for particular client groups, during this year that being offenders and people using community drugs services.

Developed from existing work that Path was doing into a more coordinated service, PAAS provides an intervention, rather than ongoing support, with some scope for follow up.

We assess the housing needs of people on community orders (probation orders) and on license, as well as people using community drugs services, referred to Path by the Gateway Service or Harbour, supporting them re their housing options.

The support we offer can vary from one meeting, where we fully brief clients of their housing options, to follow-up support with applications to the City Council or others for housing or help with accessing the private rented sector.

Number of clients given in-depth housing needs assessments (& follow up support) over the year: 635

Partners

Key partners are Harbour and Probation, along with supported accommodation providers and landlords.

---

Rent Deposit Service

* Bond scheme (for single people and couples)

We provide a service supporting clients, who otherwise would not have any recourse to money for a deposit, into the private rented sector. After a referral clients are assessed to ensure that this is the appropriate course of action and in their best interest. They are then encouraged to find a sustainable tenancy where they will be given a deposit guarantee, provided as part of our Bond scheme. (In some cases, alternative financial sources are found to support people into accommodation.)

In 2006 / 07 there were:

• 489 people referred
• 67 people provided with a bond
• 19 people supported into accommodation through other means (eg benevolent funds)
• 8 Bonds claimed against)

Partners

The main referrer is Housing Advice; to an extent, Shelter and The Zone (formerly YES) are also referral points for the Bond. Landlords and lettings agents are the other key partners.

* Landlord liaison

In this last year we had Big Lottery funding for a post created to help increase access to privately rented properties through our work with landlords.

The first year was focused on improving and developing the Deposit Guarantee scheme with landlords and letting-agents. The single most important issue that faced the Rent Deposit team this year was the introduction of national tenancy deposit legislation, bringing in compulsory protection of tenants’ deposits. We consulted with many landlords and agents that we work with to make changes to our scheme in light of the new legislation, to better meet the needs of our landlords. As a result we made various changes (put in place for the start of April 07), which are essential for the development of the service.

Resources and recruitment of landlords

In addition to this work we have produced the following:

• Tenants’ Guide to renting in Plymouth
• List of letting agents in Plymouth
• Deposit Guarantee landlord information pack
• Fact sheets: Path Services, Housing Act 2004, Tenancy deposit protection, The Rent Service, Housing Health and Safety rating system
• New Scheme Leaflets

This year we saw 13 new landlords and 7 new letting agents accept their first DG.

Housing Benefit

We have been working closely with Plymouth City Council’s Housing Benefit (HB) department to look at more efficient ways for us to assist clients in claiming for HB. At the start of the year the average time taken to process our clients’ claims was 4.8 weeks. At the end of the year this time had reduced to 2.6 weeks.

Percy Terrace

Path has access to three flats to use in a unique way. This year we have looked at using them for six month only tenancies, in order to provide intensive tenancy support to clients who have been unsuccessful in securing their own accommodation. We use this six month tenancy to address issues around clients’ inability to secure accommodation through the usual channels and look for ways in which they can move on into more sustainable tenancies. The Lottery-funded post has taken on the management responsibilities of these properties; ensuring the rent is collected, and dealing with day to day issues.

NB This role is funded by The Big Lottery Fund.

* HomeFinder: Rent Deposit for Families

Path provides rent deposits and support to families who have been specifically referred by the City Council for private rented housing. We guide the family through the often stressful time of seeking housing, providing much needed support and reassurance and advocating on their behalf with landlords and the benefits system.

In 2006 / 07:

• 125 families were housed

Partners

This scheme, though run by Path and complementary to our other services, takes referrals from, and works in partnership with, PCC’s Housing teams.

---

Tenancy Support (TS)

Tenancy Support (TS) workers help clients to set up, sustain and maintain tenancies, often where a client has had difficulties in doing so in the past. If a person is deemed to be in need of tenancy support, referrals can be made to the TS Manager.

Across 3 different Supporting People contracts, we support 85 people at any time. These contracts allow us to work with a range of people who have issues that have led to them not being able to sustain a tenancy or manage it independently. This could be due to literacy problems, mental health issues, budgeting problems, alcohol and drug issues, mild learning difficulties, domestic violence or immigration (being a refugee).

Tenancy Support can offer resettlement to a new property, for example:

• Advice with correspondence
• Setting up rent payment and help with white goods, bed etc
• Benefit maximisation plus budgeting, help with debts etc.
• Setting up utility services and bill payments
• Help accessing other services e.g. Mental Health, Drug and Alcohol, GP etc.

Tenancy Support includes and involves assessment of the client’s needs, with individual support plans agreed and reviewed with the client.

Contracts

Path holds 3 TS contracts:

• Refugee Housing Support Service, in partnership with START (re-procured and revised during this year): 10 new clients taken on (in addition to existing clients)
• Offender / DTTO, supporting offenders: 28 new clients taken on
• CAST (our biggest tenancy support contract), supporting people who are former rough sleepers or at risk of homelessness: 95 new clients taken on

Partners

START; other Path services, inc Gateway; Refugee agencies; Harbour; mental health services; Housing Officers; welfare rights services

---

Other contacts

People contact Path for a range of reasons, often wanting housing information and advice. Some of this is part of existing service provision but we monitor calls and contacts which fall outside those roles but are still relevant to our provision. Below are details about contacts from April 06 to March 07 (ie contacts not included in other stats).

• 295 contacts
• 132 from workers; 154 from public
• Main issues: housing advice (139); tenancy advice (54); referral / other service info (26)
• Main referrals to: Housing Advice (66);
  Path (71).

Website

We continue to provide and develop our website (www.plymouthpath.org), principally as a source of information for landlords and other agencies as to what we do. Now radically re-vamped, we use it for recruitment but aim to also promote it to landlords and other services. It has comprehensive information not just on Path services but regarding private renting.

4. Future Developments

Below are some of the developments for us during the year ahead, 07 / 08:

• Further development and launch of the Street Outreach Team (multi-agency team to support outreach work with rough sleepers)
• Development of our rent deposit work into a new, more combined service based around tenancy deposit protection: the Deposit Guarantee Service
• Further contributing to housing training provision
• Creating a new PAAS role, working with people using mental health services
• Expansion of Gateway team, with coordination and delivery of living skills option for offenders

5. Staffing

As of April 2007 Path is made up of:

Board of trustees
Nick Thomas (Chair); Josie Wood; Kim Ansari; Councillor George Wheeler; Lynden Gibbs; Nina Sarlaka.

Management and Admin
Mike Taylor (Director); Elaine Bentley (Finance Manager); Sharron Newberry (Office Manager); Sam Mackenzie (Admin; also part of DG Team, below).

Rough Sleeper team
Mike Leeder (Rough Sleeping Services Coordinator); Aidan Barlow and Caroline Healey (Rough Sleeper Workers).

Gateway team
Craig Ikerd (Gateway team manager); Ruth McLelland (Senior Housing Support Worker); Vanessa Vaughan (Housing Support Worker); Cathy Wilson (Housing Support Worker); Roz Hegarty (Admin Worker).
Craig and Vanessa based at Harwell Centre; Ruth, Cathy and Roz at St Catherine’s House.

Plymouth Advice & Assessment team
Ian Carrie (Advice & Assessment Team Leader); Clair White (Housing Needs Worker).

Rent Deposit Team
Kate Medhurst (Landlord Liaison Worker); Denis Johnston (HomeFinder Worker); Richard Colrein (Bond Worker); Sam Mackenzie (Admin Worker).
Based at Midland House.

Tenancy Support team
Dave Davies (Tenancy Support Team Leader); Ghia Gambardella (Senior Worker), Julian Barr, Karen Buckland, Nick Reid, Martin Robinson and Scott Robinson (Tenancy Support Workers).

6. Finances

Path’s annual income was in the region of £610k for the reporting year. This mostly comprised grants for contracted work.

In the reporting year our main funding derived from Plymouth City Council and from our Plymouth Supporting People (SP) grants. The SP grants mainly fund our tenancy support work; our other work is supported by, as well as PCC, a range of organisations, including Devon & Cornwall Probation Area (DCPA), Crime Reduction Partnership, Plymouth Drug & Alcohol Action Team and the Big Lottery. This funds much of our work with rough sleepers, offenders and drugs clients; plus our rent deposit work. The Gateway is funded through the National Offender Management Service, being a pilot in partnership with Devon and Cornwall Probation Area.

7. Partners

As noted there are many services and agencies we work and communicate with, in varying ways, to ensure and improve effectiveness of services. We value and appreciate all, whether mentioned here or not.
Generally, across our services, we work particularly with housing providers, such as: Plymouth City Council; Stonham; Westcountry; Devon & Cornwall Housing Association; and others. Also, Social Services.
The Housing Dept is crucial, including Housing Advice, Allocations and the Homeless Unit. The Primary Care Trust, and other aspects of Health, are also vital service providers and partners.
Path is also active in various partnerships and networks, including participating in:
Rough Sleeper Strategy Group; Plymouth Homeless Forum; Independent Provider Forum; (Supporting People’s) Core Strategy Group.