Investigation: shocking standards in UK privately run homeless hostels

They’re supposed to provide the most vulnerable members of society with a secure place to stay. But an in-depth investigation by Ryan Gallagher has revealed shocking complaints about privately run homeless hostels, from filthy rooms to intimidation and drug dealing – and local authorities are powerless to act

Sarah felt nauseous the first time she found a dead rat behind a skirting board in the hostel she was living in. But just like the damp wall in her room, the broken bed and the member of staff who would occasionally join her to smoke crack cocaine, it wasn’t long until the sight of vermin on her floor seemed a normal part of everyday life.

The story is just one of many heard by The Big Issue in the North over the course of a lengthy investigation into standards at some privately-run homeless hostels across England. Amid rising rates of homelessness and cuts to organisations providing housing support services, vulnerable homeless people are increasingly slipping under the radar as they are housed in unregulated hostels run by private landlords. What emerges is a brewing crisis that has until now gone unreported.

Among the allegations: unsafe accommodation, a lack of accountability and staff misconduct. Recognising the scale and sensitivity of the problem, a senior council official in Liverpool described it as a “thorny subject” and declined to speak out on the record. One Member of Parliament has vowed to take the issue up with the government and expressed serious concerns about the lack of safeguards brought to light.

At a number of hostels, “the accommodation is dangerous”, said Darren Roberts, a homeless support worker based in the North West. “Basically the situation is that anybody can open up a hostel if you can claim enhanced housing benefit for your clients, and there’s no one

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midnight, money being taken off them or intimidation.”

Thirty-one-year-old David McCormack has been in and out of homeless hostels most of his life. In recent years, he has stayed in a number of hostels in Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, St Helens and Warrington. McCormack recounted problems he experienced while staying at a chain of hostels in Liverpool, run by a private company named Loango Estates.

“They’re dirty,” McCormack said. “I complained once or twice, but nothing ever got done about it. I didn’t feel like the staff were looking out for me.”

Loango Estates, owned by a Lancashire-based family, currently operates at least three mixed-sex homeless hostels in Liverpool. Several whistleblowers who approached The Big Issue in the

MARY, AGED 40I was living in a three bedroom house but I got evicted. I was taking drugs: crack cocaine, mainly. Then I got into debt and I couldn’t pay it. That’s how I became homeless. I’ve stayed in a few hostels run by private landlords. Some were not bad, but others were the pits.

In one place I stayed, I remember that one of the night staff used to come in and do business with one of the working girls. And another of the staff, I used to score off him, I used to buy drugs off him.

Sometimes you feel like they’re just trying to scalp you for money. They tried to charge me a tenner for a clean towel. I honestly think that it’s got worse in the last two to three years. I’ve complained time and time again and it gets lost – you know, lost in the system. You chase it up and they just say they can’t find it.

who will check on what you’re doing with those clients and whether they’re safe.

“We’ve had a lot of horror stories... cases where clients are having their benefits taken from them, they’re being threatened and they’re frightened to attempt to leave. Nobody’s allowed to go in and see them from any agencies, and no agencies will go into these buildings because there’s a fear of people who are running them.”

In the past year, homelessness in England has increased by 14 per cent, the sharpest rise in nine years. At the same time, due to cuts faced by local authorities, housing support organisations have reported that almost 4,000 bed spaces have been lost in homeless accommodation services. In some cities, this has led to homeless people being housed in private for-profit hostels or bed and breakfasts that are not subject to the same standards criteria as charitable hostels that receive public funding.

“There are few ways that you can actually hold those providers to account if you have concerns about exploitation or vulnerability,” said Alice Evans, head of policy at Homeless Link, the umbrella organisation for homelessness services in England. “If they were registered as a care home or a residential home then they would be inspected by the Care Quality Commission, and then that’s fine. But otherwise there is a gap.

“It is something that our regional managers have said has come up as an issue. There have been cases where people have been evicted at

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North mentioned Loango as a concern.

Staff from other homeless organisations in the city alleged there had been cases where they were blocked access to Loango hostels to visit or contact homeless residents.

“When we tried to phone these hostels to speak to clients we would be told that they were out,” recalled one support worker, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “We had to phone up and pretend to be a friend so we could speak to them. I think they thought we were going to take the clients away and put them into new accommodation, which would mean they [Loango] would lose the housing benefit money.”

Another source, who works closely with homeless people in Liverpool, said the only complaints she had received about private hostels in Liverpool concerned Loango.

“Staff don’t respond to requests,” the source said. “We’ve heard about fire hazards where corridors are blocked with cupboards and chests of drawers; there’s no hot water; a hole in the ceiling of a bathroom; no locks on doors.”

Between 2009 and 2011, Loango received more than £3.2 million from Liverpool Council to

provide “housing related support services”. The company was not recommissioned by the council during the last round of applications in 2011. Documents obtained by The Big Issue in the North under the Freedom of Information Act show the council deemed Loango’s application for funding “non-compliant” in May last year, meaning it did not meet standards outlined in the council’s commissioning contract. But the company still continues to accommodate homeless people at its Liverpool hostels, and can claim enhanced housing benefit from homeless residents at a fee of up to about £190 per week.

Contacted by phone, a Loango representative denied all knowledge of the specific allegations and invited anyone with complaints to come forward.

“These allegations come about people all the time, and 99.9 per cent are completely untrue,” the representative said. “We’ve got no evidence, and I’ve got no proof of any serious allegations that are being made against us.”

A senior Liverpool Council official with knowledge of homeless services in the city was aware of the problem but declined to go on record, saying:

“This is a bit of a thorny subject.” The official added: “We don’t have a way to measure private providers’ standards. I have a real concern where our vulnerable people are in the city.”

In a statement, Liverpool Council acknowledged it had little power to inspect privately-run hostels. A spokesperson said: “Where we are aware that concerns have been raised about particular establishments from a number of sources, we hold multi-agency strategy meetings with key partners (for example, police, environmental health) to gain a holistic view of the issues and the avenues open to the council to address the identified issues.

“However, in reality this is a very complex area and currently Liverpool City Council, like all local authorities, does not have a power to enter into privately-run establishments under the current safeguarding legislation. This therefore prohibits us from being able to undertake monitoring actions such as spot checks as we have no basis in legislation to do so.”

Louise Ellman, Labour Co-operative MP for Liverpool Riverside, was alarmed by details passed to her by The Big Issue in the North and

REGULATION GAPThere are significant gaps in laws that can be used to monitor standards in privately-run homeless hostels. If a hostel receives local authority Supporting People funding then there are quality standards it has to meet. However, non-funded homeless hostels run by private landlords only have to pass House in Multiple Occupation tests, which are minimal and don’t cover staffing standards or enable spot checks.

If a resident of a private hostel is unhappy they could complain to the council’s environmental health department. But this only covers the physical space and basic standards relating to safety, such as fire regulations, and does not cover any additional services provided.

The Department of Health is currently consulting on the draft Care and Support Bill, which includes a proposal to introduce the first ever statutory framework for “adult safeguarding”. This could potentially result in local authorities being given powers to enter private hostels for spot checks, as the bill would make it necessary by law for a local authority to pursue “whatever enquiries it thinks necessary” in cases where it suspects vulnerable adults could be experiencing, or are at risk of, abuse or neglect.

“There are few ways that you can actually hold those providers to account if you have concerns.”

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vowed to take further action. “I’m very troubled to hear these reports,” Ellman said. “I have contacted the council and I understand that there is no power to inspect privately-run establishments.

“This is a matter of great concern. I will raise it with the appropriate government minister.”

In other cities – from York and Burnley to London and Birmingham – community groups are campaigning about rising homelessness. But the problem is not likely to be alleviated in the near future. A survey by the National Housing Federation earlier this year, exclusively obtained by The Big Issue in the North, found that organisations across England

SARAH, AGED 51I’ve stayed in lots of different homeless hostels. One of the worst was run by a private landlord. A member of staff used to just sit in the room piping [crack cocaine] with us, and I remember the manager would buy shoplifted stuff from me. One time he gave me a list to get him knock-off kids’ clothes because his missus was having a baby.

I paid them a standard charge of about £12 a week, and on top of that they were getting between £170 to £180 housing benefit to put me up. If health and safety went there they’d shut the place down within minutes. I can still smell it – the filthy mattresses. The building stank of urine all the way through, and some windows were broken. For more than ten years I’ve been in and out of hostels – it’s not been easy. I’m trying to sort my life out. I was raising a family, but I got into a bad relationship and drugs were involved. I have grandkids now but I don’t see them.

“No agencies will go into these buildings

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providing housing support to homeless people are expecting to receive further cuts between now and 2015. Forty-six per cent of approximately 100 respondents to the survey said cuts had already led to a reduction in the level of support for clients.

In some cases, organisations providing support and accommodation to homeless people have been forced to cease providing beds altogether. In Rochdale, a Salvation Army hostel with 68 beds closed its doors in March, and the Sanctuary Trust, which provides accommodation for 13 men and follow-up support for 16 people

with drug problems, is struggling to maintain its services after losing £300,000 in funding.

“Leading up to April, we had to quickly move 13 residents on to other accommodation – which is our goal but it was far too rushed,” said David Lackner-Smith, chief executive of the Sanctuary Trust. “There are two people who lost their lives, who are now dead, as a result of that, I believe. That’s the most shocking thing. They were moved on too fast and they couldn’t handle it. Both of them had alcohol problems and both

of them died from alcohol-related deaths. It was horrendous.”

Lackner-Smith adds that the Sanctuary Trust no longer provides ten spaces of emergency accommodation to 16 and 17 year olds as a consequence of cuts his organisation has faced. He said he has seen a rising number of homeless people staying in privately-run accommodation like bed and breakfasts, where they often receive no support or treatment if they have problems with alcoholism or drug addiction.

“People are being pushed out right to the edges of community and society and they’re not getting the help that they need,” he said.

Government statistics released in March showed rising numbers of homeless people across the country are being put up in bed and breakfast accommodation – with numbers up 37 per cent on the previous year.

This came as no surprise to Steve Goslyn, chief executive of Threshold, which provides support for homeless people in Oldham, Stockport, and Tameside. He said that due to a net reduction in the number of bed spaces available across Greater Manchester, homeless people are increasingly staying in privately-run accommodation.

“Often with our Greater Manchester offenders project the only place that we can get homeless offenders somewhere to live is in a private B&B with a landlord,” Goslyn said. “The stability that used to exist in terms of locally based organisations delivering services is threatened. It has an impact on the

diversity of services that have been around for years and years.”

Though the picture presented here is bleak and worsening, there remain many charities and voluntary organisations working hard to maintain a high standard of help to homeless people despite the obvious financial difficulties.

For Sarah, there is a glimmer of hope and optimism on the horizon. Aged 51, she recently managed to find new homeless accommodation in the North West she describes as “five star”, and is now learning new computer skills and receiving counselling.

“No wonder people keep going in and out of hostels like me for the last ten years, because we were in hostel after hostel with no support,” she said. “Since I’ve come to this place I’ve started to realise how much we have been abused and taken for granted. Not having beds that are broken or walls leaking, and rats running across the room. I don’t ever want to go back to that.”

Some names have been changed

GOVERNMENT RESPONSEA spokesperson for the Department for Communities and Local Government said: “This government has provided £42.5 million under the Homelessness Change Programme to improve hostels for rough sleepers. This will provide 1,500 new and refurbished bed spaces over the next three years.

“Vulnerable people were a priority in the spending review and the government secured £6.5 billion investment for [the] Supporting People [budget]. Despite the need to reduce the inherited national deficit, this equates to an average annual reduction of less than 1 per cent in cash terms.

“The removal of ring-fencing in 2009 from Supporting People funding, by the previous government, gave councils the freedom to spend the funding as they deemed best, in line with their local priorities. By rolling Supporting People funding into the main formula grant to local authorities in 2011, this government has given councils the maximum flexibility to meet their local needs in the best way.

“Many hostels, such as those run by big homelessness charities like the Salvation Army, St Mungo’s and the YMCA, have established complaints procedures for any residents who are unhappy with the services being provided or the accommodation.”

“When we tried to phone these hostels to speak to clients we would be told they were out.”

“This is a matter of great concern.”Ellman

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Investigation: shocking standards in UK privately run homeless hostels

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