Combatting homelessness key to solving social housing crisis

Be it lengthening hospital waiting lists, children who have missed out on learning, or people who have simply not had jobs to go back to, the recovery from the coronavirus pandemic will be as complex as it will be long.

Local governments may have broadly similar challenges and priorities as they did prior to 2020, but they now loom much larger, and are far more pressing than could have been imagined eighteen months ago.

For Colchester, one of the most pressing issues is housing and accommodation.

In 2019, Colchester was statistically the fastest growing town in the east of England, and two years on, the housing supply is still struggling to keep up with the intensity of the demand.

A challenging times, then, to be appointed the Chief Executive of the body that is tasked with the maintenance, management, and improvement of council houses throughout Colchester.

Philip Sullivan – who had previously worked for four years serving as the Chief Executive of Tower Hamlets Community Housing – is the new man at the helm of Colchester Borough Homes.

With as many as 3,000 people on the waiting list looking to move into council houses in Colchester, Mr Sullivan – appointed only earlier this month – has some task on his hands.

Each time a three-bed council property becomes available, there are quite literally hundreds of people applying for residence in a council house.

Having worked with Colchester Council since 2003, Colchester Borough Homes is responsible for 7,000 council houses and, on top of that, Leisure World, the Council Chambers, and Colchester Castle.

It is quite the portfolio.

According to Mr Sullivan though, one of the answers to rectifying the spiralling waiting list for council homes in Colchester is tackling homelessness at source.

He said: “We want to be part of the solution to that waiting list, and we want to make sure that we do our bit to fulfil that need for council houses.

“The first thing we need to do is to prevent homelessness,” he said.

Key to success – Chairman of Colchester Borough Homes, Dirk Paterson (second from right) at the unveiling of four new council homes.

Mr Sullivan does not duck responsibility and he is keen to tackle the problem head-on.

“We have a real responsibility to manage our existing homes as effectively and efficiently as we can so that they can have people live in them as quickly as possible,” he added.

“If we provide people with staying in their existing homes it means that some of the supply challenge is dealt with.”

During the height of the pandemic, however – which of course is before Mr Sullivan began his stint as chief executive – Colchester Borough Homes had no choice but to try and tackle parts of Colchester’s homelessness problem at breakneck speed.

The Covid-19 lockdown brought almost a sense of emergency to Colchester Borough Homes’ work on the prevention of homelessness and the provisions for rough-sleepers.

As the independent chair of Colchester Borough Homes, Dirk Paterson explained how a plan of action swung into motion to swiftly help those who were on Colchester’s streets.

He said: “When the government shut down, so did pretty much every other provision for homeless and rough sleepers across the borough.

“We had to find accommodation for a lot of people who were on the streets within a week.”

A daunting prospect, given that homelessness is a long-term problem without a long-term fix.

“We repurposed two hotels and an old people’s home, and that meant our staff were quite literally running around finding furniture, turning on utilities, repurposing these types of accommodation,” Mr Paterson continued.

“Then, our staff were running around in taxis on a one-to-one basis picking up individuals because they couldn’t travel together and driving them to these new repurposed places and supporting them into housing.”

Read more:

• This is how many affordable homes were built in Colchester in 2020/21

• Thousands of Colchester homes earn more than their owners in a year

• The most expensive homes sold in Colchester so far this year

It was certainly as frantic as Mr Paterson described it – but what was the end result, as the country gradually re-emerged from the shackles of Covid restrictions?

“Every single one of those people, bar two, have been housed permanently at the end of that process – and that has not happened before, ever.

“It’s a remarkable achievement that has never been delivered in this borough before, for the most vulnerable in society.”

Out of the 7,000 homes in Colchester Borough Homes’ portfolio, the number of homeless people they managed to provide shelter for is likely to be only a fraction of the number of residents they cater for – but the work done during the early months of the pandemic is perhaps the most important project they have upon.

A high bar has been set, but this is the kind of work that Mr Sullivan is determined to continue as the newly-appointed chief executive.

“Colchester Borough Homes has been very successful in helping people who need to move and who need accommodation.

“What we need to keep doing is turn around our empty properties as quickly as we can.

“We had 474 re-lets in 2021 – if they had just sat empty during the pandemic, that’s 474 households who wouldn’t have been accommodated.”

Equally pressing for Mr Sullivan is making the new houses that Colchester Borough Homes is building as sustainable as possible.

The new council houses are to be built with what are called air source heat pumps, an energy efficient means of heating.

The roll-out of installing PV cells – better-known as solar panels – on the roofs of council houses is also ongoing.

Now attention turns to the Covid recovery and the future of social housing in Colchester.

The beginning of 2022 will see a new strategy – which is still being drafted – on how to keep chipping away at the 3,000-long waiting list for council houses.

The framework seems to be in place to combat the social housing shortage in Colchester, but it will soon be time for the new boss to put the plan into action.