COV - Housing Related Support Services (2026)

Coventry City Council ("the Council") are seeing a sharp increase in people approaching the statutory homeless service (a 36% increase in approaches from 22/23 to 23/24). This increase in footfall has resulted in a significant increase in the number of households in temporary accommodation. Our Supported Temporary Accommodation (STA) provision is provided by the Council for single people and in order to receive enhanced housing benefit rates, housing related support must be provided. As part of the Council's Medium Term Financial Strategy savings, we will be expanding the portfolio over the next 12 months to cater for the demand and deliver savings. Commissioned support will need to be delivered into the provision, and this commissioning round will factor this in. Coventry's latest homeless review (2024) identified a number of key challenges and factors that impact homelessness in the city. • Affordability: The cost of housing, whether through buying or renting, is rising faster than household incomes, creating a disparity and the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates have struggled to keep pace with the rising rents. • Health and homelessness: it is well evidenced that people who are homeless experience worse health outcomes than the rest of the population, this includes both physical health as well as mental health and medical interventions and support for the use of substances. • Domestic abuse: Domestic abuse is a key factor in terms of homelessness within Coventry. • Increased demand: There has been a year-on-year increase in demand for support in regard to homelessness in the city particularly from young people, single adults, and single parents with dependent children. • Homelessness Prevention: Early advice and intervention is key in preventing homelessness and our data tells us that households have better outcomes when they approach the service as early as possible. • Temporary accommodation: The increased demand for temporary accommodation and length of stay, against the availability of permanent accommodation suggests that the number of households accommodated in temporary accommodation will continue to rise if the supply of affordable housing does not increase. • Private Rented Sector (PRS) accommodation: PRS accommodation possesses two distinct challenges for homelessness services. Ending of a PRS tenancy is a key reason for the loss of the last settled accommodation and affordability in terms of moving households on from temporary accommodation. • Supply: The housing needs in terms of the number of households on the housing list in the city outpaces the availability of social rented housing, highlighting the gap in supply and demand. • Duty to refer: Although the duty to refer numbers have increased there are still key services who are not maximising the opportunity to prevent homelessness by using the duty to refer. • Support needs: The primary support need for those approaching the homelessness service is in relation to Mental Health closely followed by physical health, substance misuse, and domestic abuse. • Rough sleeping: The number of individuals found rough sleeping is on an upward trend, with a notable increase in non-nationals being found. The new provision will support the delivery of the Homeless and Rough Sleeping Strategy. The key aim is to ensure that the newly commissioned services are not only focussed on the delivery of services to households who are in a crisis, but that prevention work is fundamental in the delivery of these services. We are proposing that there will be 5 commissioned Lots to deliver housing related support services and specialist accommodation and that, within these, there are some specific Lots that address and support the aspirations within the Homeless and Rough Sleeping Strategy and for specific groups at risk of homelessness.