North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood has today called on the Welsh Government to ensure that the key preventative services provided by the Supporting People Programme, the Homelessness Prevention Grant and the Housing Transition Fund are protected from any financial cuts.
Mr Isherwood, who two weeks ago, in support of Community Housing Cymru and Cymorth Cymru’s ‘Let’s Keep on Supporting People’ campaign for 2017-18, called for the Supporting People Programme to be protected from cuts, has this week reiterated his plea and emphasised the need to also safeguard the Homelessness Prevention Budget and the Housing Transition Fund, which like the Supporting People Programme, save money.
Speaking in this afternoon’s Opposition Debate on Supporting People in the Assembly he said:
“Our amendment recognises that this funding helps people to live independently, saves lives, saves money for statutory services and provides a platform for other sources of funds to be deployed into prevention work.
“The Supporting People Programme is conservatively estimated to save £2.30 for every £1 spent, whilst also levering in other funding, preventing homelessness, preventing spending on Health and Social Care and increasing community safety – minimising the need for high cost interventions and reducing avoidable pressure on statutory services.
“Supporting People Providers have been doing all they can to cut costs and deliver effective services with decreasing budgets, but further cuts would do irreparable damage to these essential prevention services, leaving many vulnerable people with nowhere else to turn.
“The Supporting People Programme Grant is £124.4 million and Cymorth Cymru are grateful for the cross-party support that kept this protected last year. They state the Housing Transition Fund has also been hugely promising and effective. However, set around £5m last year, and falling to around £3m this year, this is due to reach its final year of funding next year. So that Local Authorities are able to retain this funding to enable innovative ways of working, they suggest an increase in the Supporting People Grant to £130 million, and rolling the Transition Fund into that. This would allow security of funding for local authorities and providers alike to explore new ways of addressing the homelessness issue.
“And Shelter Cymru, Llamua, Gisda, Digartref Ynys Mon and Dewis are calling on the Welsh Government to ensure that all the three budgets that support vital prevention of homelessness work are protected - Supporting People, Transition Fund and the Homelessness Prevention fund. They state that the “Homelessness Prevention Grant provides one of the few stable sources of funding for independent housing advice for those at risk of homelessness, without which much of that work would be at risk.
They add that the grant has provided a platform for other sources of funds to be deployed into prevention work, and works with people before their problems escalate, meaning statutory services are benefitting from this funding. In other words, cuts to any of these mutually supporting funds would effectively be a bigger cut to statutory services. As the people I met when I visited Supporting People Projects this summer told me, these had saved their lives.”